It’s an indication of how well matched the teams at the Champions Trophy are, or the result of some capricious pitches, that three of the fancied teams are on their way home well before the end of the tournament. Early season tracks were always expected to be unpredictable, especially after a very dry winter here, but this has had a touch of Russian roulette to it. Teams like to know what conditions are likely to be but it is also a measure of skill when you have to adapt quickly to something unexpected. From that point of view, the cricket has been good.

India didn’t adapt well enough. The bowlers conceded too many against Pakistan and, to be completely honest, were in the process of allowing Australia to put up a match-winning score when the rain arrived. The bowling was the real issue here, not the absence of key players. True, you cannot substitute a Yuvraj or a Zaheer easily, or in this kind of form a Sehwag, but that is the reality of all sport. Teams that rely on specific individuals will always be vulnerable. India need 15 or 16 players playing at a certain level and currently while that could be true of the batting, it isn’t of the bowling.

It might have been a throwaway line from Dhoni when he said that at times he felt he was three bowlers short. In fact in the game against Pakistan, at the 38 over mark, he could have looked around the ground and not found one player he could confidently throw the ball to. Harbhajan Singh, his most experienced bowler, and the bowler who really should have been his bank, his go-to bowler, had an average tournament. But most dramatic, and disappointing for Indian cricket, was the decline of Ishant Sharma and RP Singh. Coming on the heels of similar problems with Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth, it is a question that requires a very serious assessement. Good bowlers bowl well for ten years with the occasional bad period in between, not for two years or a season here and a season there. Could it be too much cricket? Could it too much in the mind? Could it be too little in it?

... contd.