Team India suffered a crushing six-wicket defeat at the hands of West Indies in the second ODI in Barbados on Saturday (July 29).
Indian team management's decision to rest skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli backfired badly as none of the middle-order batters managed to cope with pace, bounce and turn, getting all-out for 181 in 40.5 overs.
In reply, West Indies survived a lively spell from Shardul Thakur (3/42 in 8 overs) before skipper Shai Hope (63* off 80 balls) and young Keacy Carty (48* 65 balls) stitched an unbroken 91-run stand for the fifth wicket to take the hosts over the line with 80 deliveries to spare.
Disappointed by the performance, former pacer Venkatesh Prasad said India have been ordinary in white-ball cricket and also called them out for “celebrating mediocrity”.
Taking to micro-blogging site X, Prasad wrote: “Test cricket aside, India has been very ordinary in the other two formats for quite sometime now. Lost odi series against ban, SA and Aus. Poor in the last two T20 World Cups. Neither are we an exciting team like England nor brutal like how the Aussies used to be. Cont”.
“Despite the money and power, we have become used to celebrating mediocrity and are far from how champion sides are. Every team plays to win and so does India but their approach and attitude is also a factor for underperformance over a period of time,” he added.
Notably, it's been a decade since India last won an ICC tournament. After MS Dhoni led the side to a Champions Trophy triumph in 2013, India have lost as many as four ICC event finals and bowed out in the semi-finals on numerous occasions.
While Virat Kohli took the team to great heights in Test cricket, he also failed to lift the ICC trophy as a captain. The same has been the case with current skipper Rohit Sharma, under whom the team lost the T20 World Cup semi-final to England last year while they suffered a crushing 209-run defeat at the hands of Australia in the WTC final last month.
While the Indian team is considered one of the favourites for the ODI World Cup at home later this year, it remains to be seen whether Rohit and his men managed to end the ICC trophy drought or not.
