Millions of cricket-crazy fans in India woke up Monday to disbelief and dismay after the defending champions were knocked out of the World Twenty20 by England. The defeat at Lord's - by just three runs - meant India, who won the inaugural 2007 edition in South Africa, have no chance of progressing further in the tournament.
'OUT' read a huge headline in the Indian Express, which described the team's performance as undignified and said the close margin of defeat did not reflect how poorly the Indians played. The paper put the blame on India's batsmen who struggled to cope with an aggressive pace bowling attack. "There will be time for post-mortems but first impressions are that they should have seen it coming. The West Indies quicks had them hopping around on Friday night and they got more of the same on Sunday," it said.
"England's quick bowlers got the short ball talking and India's batting bullies found themselves uncomfortably shuffling backwards." The Times of India said India had lacked energy and performed poorly in the field. A scathing report in The Pioneer said "tired" India deserved their fate given their preparations for the tournament. "Though Dhoni denied it on all occasions, his boys were wholesomely tired," it said.
Comments
Comments are closed.