World Cup 2023: Reason why India fails in ICC Tournament, tells Rashid Latif: Team India has been one of the greatest forces in world cricket for close to two decades now. India has produced some of the biggest superstars of the game and the country continues to do it. However, despite having such a big name and stature, the Men in Blue have failed, not once but multiple times, to end its ICC trophy drought.
The biggest conundrum in front of the Indian team, during the upcoming ICC World Cup 2023, would be to dissect their performances from past ICC events and strategies to break the shackles in order to put an end to its criticism of being called ‘chokers’ in the important knockout matches.
The coming few months would be very crucial for India as it is scheduled to play the ODI series against Australia, Asia Cup 2023 and then the ICC World Cup 2023.
Team India’s performance in the past few ICC events has been utterly disappointing. They ended up being the runner-up during the T20 World Cup 2014 and Champions Trophy 2017. India’s hopes during the 2015 and 2019 ODI World Cup were shattered in the semi-finals. Meanwhile, in the recent two ICC tournaments, India faced a defeat against England in the T20 World Cup 2022 semi-final and lost to Australia in the ICC World Test Championship Final.
Despite all the losses and setbacks, India is still one of the formidable sides in cricket, which is why they are being reckoned as one of the favourites to win the ICC World Cup 2023, which will be held in India, starting October 5.
Reason why India fails in ICC Tournament: Rashid Latif
Notably, Pakistan’s former wicketkeeper batter Rashid Latif reckons India’s “internal issues” have played a greater role in disturbing the balance of the team, which eventually translated to poor performances in the World Cups.
“Virat Kohli had a direction and he wanted to win, but he was sacked. The team couldn’t perform due to internal issues. They couldn’t perform in ICC tournaments because, maybe, the captain didn’t get the desired players. Or maybe he got, but they weren’t used. Now, there are two big events — Asia Cup in Sri Lanka and the World Cup at home. Their team is still pretty good, they will get a no.4,” Rashid Latif said.
Latif mentioned that seasoned batter Shikhar Dhawan was made India’s captain in one of the tours, the previous year, but now he is not in contention for the World Cup 2023.
“The problem begins when the top-3 get dismissed quickly. If the top-3 play out the 25-30 overs, they will win easily. Their issue is the top-3 isn’t performing how it used to. They could’ve brought back Shikhar Dhawan, you had made him captain less than a year ago during a tour. You had players, you threw them here and there.”
ALSO READ: Pakistan to become No 1 ODI Team ahead of Asia Cup 2023, ICC ODI Team Ranking
For more details head to ICC’s official website.