Does this Indian team have desired cricketing IQ ?

[kosingh]

Use left handed batsman against right arm bowler is the limit of this team under this coach when it comes to analytical thinking 

[Gollum]

WI NRR +5.35

 

RSA NRR +3.8 (came at our expense)

 

Ind NRR -3.8

 

If WI beats RSA, tournament over for us. Unless we beat Zim by 150 or so runs. 

 

How can any TM be this stupid? That they kept on going for hoicks instead of getting a respectable 160. RSA would have happily taken any win that day, was our chance to save our NRR. And we had 8 batting options to do that !!!!!

 

GG and SKY are without doubt the most stupid coach-captain combo in the hostory of cricket. Even Pooks never do this kind of comedy. From dropping Axar to sending Washi at number 5, their ridiculous bowling changes and tactics, wtf were they smoking? 

Edited February 24 by Gollum

[Gollum]

RSA didn't just get NRR of +3.8, worst thing was it came at our expense. So we have to gain 152 runs to catch up with them. 

[IndianRenegade]

Lot of great points in this thread. I can kind of digest all the tactical mistakes, selecting a complete misfit like sundar in T20, not having a strategy to counter a part timer, being tactically out matched in every department by SA.
 

All of it is fine. You win some, you lose some, SA are t20 wc runners up, no shame in losing to them. But 50/5 at the end of 10, facing a NRR disaster your last recognised batter is going for a glory shot on the first ball he faces. I completely lost it! The sinking feeling that the think tank is either completely clueless or the players are doing their own thing & to hell with team objectives. 
 

hopefully there is some adult in the room, who talks sense into this team.

 

 

[G_B_]

GG needs to take the blame.

 

From dropping Axar for Sunder to basically not being tactical...I dont think 160 was achievable. But 140 probably was. 

 

 

[Sooda]

On this point why are we so fixated with Tilak at 3 even when we know he gets bogged down Vs off spin. Seems cowardly of SKY to fix himself at 4. What happened to that all the hype about Flexibility. I thought even Vs Pak SKY should have been at 3. I wonder if his better recent form is due to him coming at 4 and this is why

[IndianRenegade]

Our think tank right now…

 

[Chaos]

Iq? Hahaha thats a huge ask my friend. Bowl 2 dot balls they go around like monkeys searching for bananas

[nevada]

On 2/23/2026 at 7:45 AM, singhvivek141 said:

Guys, calm down.

 

Its a game, win or loss is a part of it. We lost one game after being invincible in 2024 T20 WC, 2025 CT and Asia Cup...even in 2023 ODI WC, we were invincible till the last game.

 

This team is a bit of a one trick pony and got ambushed by change in pitch type. Why couldn't we lay out similar pitches in all the bilateral series played prior to the world cup? After the first game itself it was clear that we were no longer going to have easy pitches to bat on. What was the coaching staff doing? Didn't they advise the batters to fine tune their strategy since just biffing ball from the first delivery wasn't going to work? 

[putrevus]

4 hours ago, IndianRenegade said:

Lot of great points in this thread. I can kind of digest all the tactical mistakes, selecting a complete misfit like sundar in T20, not having a strategy to counter a part timer, being tactically out matched in every department by SA.
 

All of it is fine. You win some, you lose some, SA are t20 wc runners up, no shame in losing to them. But 50/5 at the end of 10, facing a NRR disaster your last recognised batter is going for a glory shot on the first ball he faces. I completely lost it! The sinking feeling that the think tank is either completely clueless or the players are doing their own thing & to hell with team objectives. 
 

hopefully there is some adult in the room, who talks sense into this team.

 

 

That is why you are better off playing extra bowler.Kuldeep in place of Rinku would have helped more.Out of 100 matches guy like Rinku batting at number 8 will make a difference maybe once .

 

Pandya and Dube cannot bowl more than 4 overs on these wickets.They will leak runs at some stage if they are asked to bowl more.

[rish]

India needs to go with four bowlers plus axay and hardik.

 

One of tilak or surya needs to be dropped.

 

So team should be

abhishek

Sanju

Ishan kishan

Surya 

Shivam

Hardik

Axay

Kuldeep

Bumrah

Arshdeep

Varun

[Ultimate_Game]

37 minutes ago, rish said:

India needs to go with four bowlers plus axay and hardik.

 

One of tilak or surya needs to be dropped.

 

So team should be

abhishek

Sanju

Ishan kishan

Surya 

Shivam

Hardik

Axay

Kuldeep

Bumrah

Arshdeep

Varun

 

We can't compromise on our batting depth. That's the only thing that has worked for us in the longer run. Plus with batting shaky at the top, we need depth. Don't change the approach, just pick the right players, i.e. Axar in place of Sundar.

[MK55]

If West Indies win tomorrow it’s effectively game over lol. It’s as simple as that.

 

It’s ok to lose but not OK / unacceptable to have a brain freeze in a tournament such as this.  Such a massive embarrassment.

 

[MK55]

Knowing this SA team, they r fully capable of losing 1 of their remaining 2 matches. 

[Nikhil_cric]

T20 World Cup formats are terrible and have always been terrible.

 

There should be points carried over for topping the group. Pre-seeding is terrible. 

 

Either points carry over or just have KO's after the group stage.

[neel roy]

11 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

T20 World Cup formats are terrible and have always been terrible.

 

There should be points carried over for topping the group. Pre-seeding is terrible. 

 

Either points carry over or just have KO's after the group stage.

Pre seeding is a farce honestly. So is group seedings. The best format is the 2023 wc. Round robin. Everyone plays everyone. Fair chance. We are going back to the stupid super 6 format ( 1999 ) in 2027 WC

[Nikhil_cric]

41 minutes ago, neel roy said:

Pre seeding is a farce honestly. So is group seedings. The best format is the 2023 wc. Round robin. Everyone plays everyone. Fair chance. We are going back to the stupid super 6 format ( 1999 ) in 2027 WC

That is a great format if we have only 8-9 teams, otherwise the tournament will drag on forever without any jeopardy. 

 

Need to move to a FIFA model with 32 teams and 8 groups and only knockouts after group stage 

[rollingstoned]

17 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

That is a great format if we have only 8-9 teams, otherwise the tournament will drag on forever without any jeopardy. 

 

Need to move to a FIFA model with 32 teams and 8 groups and only knockouts after group stage 

There aren't that many cricket teams. You'll be pencilling in associates just to make up numbers. 

Just a straight up league format and then knockouts will work. 

[Nikhil_cric]

5 minutes ago, rollingstoned said:

There aren't that many cricket teams. You'll be pencilling in associates just to make up numbers. 

Just a straight up league format and then knockouts will work. 

When we increased to 20 teams, we thought all associates would get beaten out of sight. But that clearly hasn't been the case in this World T20 apart from Oman maybe 

 

I think we should expand sooner rather than later.   

 

The standards of these associates will only improve if they play at this level. 

 

 

[rollingstoned]

1 hour ago, Nikhil_cric said:

When we increased to 20 teams, we thought all associates would get beaten out of sight. But that clearly hasn't been the case in this World T20 apart from Oman maybe 

 

I think we should expand sooner rather than later.   

 

The standards of these associates will only improve if they play at this level. 

 

 

You can either want to give these teams an opportunity or keep the tournament short and sweet. Achieving both will be hard.