The reasons for his anguish fell into two categories:

n The niggles picked up in the IPL — skipper MS Dhoni admitted that a majority of the squad was not at full fitness — could not be monitored by his support staff centrally

n The players that Kirsten got back, virtually on the eve of the World T20 championship, had been filling very different roles with their respective franchises.

As a result, the intensity was missing, and the mental fatigue was matched by a more tangible physical fatigue. In normal circumstances, Team India’s support staff drafts separate fitness plans for each player based on various factors — from areas of weakness to rates of metabolism — so they can play for longer periods without suffering injuries. These plans are followed even during off-season or Ranji matches.

But since the IPL franchises had top professionals with international experience in their own support staff, the centralised programme was sent out of the window. Players were dealing with new trainers, most of them big names in their field, whose responsibility started and ended with ensuring fitness for that tournament’s duration. Overwork in the short term, especially with so much cricket, was always likely to lead to problems in the days to come.

That factor, along with the lack of preparation time, made it a bigger problem for India than the IPL’s international players because a) fewer of them played as many matches as the Indians because of the four-foreigner rule and, b) their boards took steps to minimise the conflict of interest.

“A lot of international teams had players in the IPL, but

they had a lot more time to prepare than us,” Kirsten said, a fact backed by South Africa coach Mickey Arthur, most of whose squad was part of the IPL as well.

South Africa looked one of the best outfits in the tournament even though they lost to Pakistan in the semi-final on Thursday. “After the IPL, we made it a point to get together for a camp,” Arthur said. “We went away to the bush and had serious discussions on how we wanted to play as a team.”

Even during the IPL, Arthur said, the team’s support staff was constantly in touch with the players and their franchises. “That’s something we did particularly well. It’s important that you’re in contact with the players at all times. You need to know if guys are picking up niggles. We had a huge tournament coming up and we needed to know what buttons to push to get the best out of our players.”

Pakistan, who will get their second shot at World T20 glory on Sunday, benefited from a pre-tournament camp as well. The team hardly played any cricket in the build-up to the tournament, but with time on their hands, said coach Intikhab Alam, they had a week-long camp and some practice games at Bhurban, a hill station in Punjab. “We got a lot of time to discuss the game and work on our strategies. We had two teams there, Pakistan and Pakistan A.”

A lot of Sri Lankans played in the IPL, but skipper Kumara Sangakkara reckoned they had less trouble gelling as a unit because “we are in a small country and have been playing together since the under-13s because all of us live in or around Colombo.”

However, the lack of time spent together was only part of the problem. The key question is: India has a lot of good T20 players, but did it have a good T20 team going into the tournament in England?

Dhoni & Co went into the 2007 World T20 having played just one T20 match. But following the T20 rush thereafter, Dhoni now has 70 games, vice-captain Yuvraj Singh 72, and most others have similar numbers under their belts. This experience is well above the international average: Kevin Pietersen has played 58 T20 games, and Ricky Ponting just 39.

However, this team full of experienced individuals has had very little experience as a team. Between the last World T20 and this one, India played just five matches. They lost three of these, two to New Zealand, one to Australia.

Players’ roles in their IPL teams were different from what they were expected to do in the national side. And there just wasn’t enough time to get it right.

Consider these:

•Sehwag’s injury forced Rohit Sharma to move up to the top of the order. He began well, but failed in the crunch.

•Dhoni’s and Raina’s batting roles were confused — they traded spots at one-drop in both tournaments.

•At Mohali, men like Mahela Jayawardene and Sangakkara allowed Yuvraj to throw his bat around. For India in England, he waged a lone battle.

•At Rajasthan, Warne planned the team’s batting around Yusuf Pathan, moving him up and down the order as required. For India, Pathan came in at No 6, and barely got a hit.

Almost all South Africans played the IPL, but the cap on the number of foreigners ensured they were slotted into roles that were similar in both their teams. Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith were top-order hitters for their IPL teams, Kallis got the No 3 spot for Bangalore, AB de Villiers was a middle-order buffer for Delhi and JP Duminy played innings-controller for Mumbai.

It can be argued that in football too players from different clubs come together for their national side. But in most cases, international football teams have long camps and hundreds of hours of training before big tournaments — and even then the club vs country debate is rampant. Don’t forget: Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has had wars of words with the England manager of the day before every major tournament for the last 22 years.