England v India- Defending Champion India thrashed by England

That is that for India. The defending twenty20 World Champions India crashed by England to get out of the competition. The determined England put up a good show with bowl to restrict India short by 3 runs of their target. Chasing the target of 154 runs to win Indian top order batsman didn’t provided the start they were looking for. They consumed too many deliveries in the middle overs and could not able to keep the control over required run rate.

G.Swann turn the game in England favour in his 3^rd and 14^th over of Indian innings when he dismissed R.Jadeja (25 runs of 35 balls) and dangerous looking Yuvraj Singh (17 runs of 9 balls), India needed another 67 runs in 36 balls to achieve the target.

The turning point was the dismissal of Yuvraj Singh superbly stumped by James Foster as he reached out to drive Swann. Yuvraj had smashed 17 - including two sixes - from eight balls prior to that, but Foster's quicksilver glovework ensured that India were left a Snowdon-sized peak to climb without their most explosive batsman.

Yusuf Pathan (33 runs of 17 balls) and M.S.Dhoni (30 runs of 20 balls) did tried hard by putting on 63 runs in 36 balls for the sixth wicket but it was too late for the Indians.

There too much mistakes made by the Indians in a do-or-die game and M.S.Dhoni must be asked why he sent R.Jadeja ahead of in-form Yuvraj Singh or why he didn’t came himself to consolidate the inning when India are two down for 24 runs on the board in the 4^th over.

When asked about sending Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj M.S.Dhoni in post match presentation said he was saving Yuvraj and himself for the last few overs. But he must learn from the mistakes quickly of sending better player ahead in the crunch game. He was too defensive today’s in his decision making whatever the reason.

Now India are out of competition and they will take on South Africa on Tuesday and look to register a win to save some pride otherwise it’s one of worst series India have played in the recent times.

154 runs target was easily achievable if he had planned their innings perfectly but it was total misjudgment by the team management of sending Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj Singh.

The most glamorous team is knocked out and with a close defeat, there will be numerous points to ponder over and different people will come up with different points in the game that resulted in this 3 run defeat. Ishant Sharma's expensive spell, Jadeja's innings of the early 90s ODI mould, Dhoni's inability to get the big shots going et al. But the margin of three runs takes my head to that one particular delivery. Three extra runs were given away by India off what would have been the last ball of the England innings had it not been a wide. It was fired outside the leg stump by Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh charged in to stop an unstoppable single, only to fumble and let it go to the fine leg fence. What could have been 2 wides, was 5 wides and perhaps, when this match is seen under the microscope, it was that microscopic slip up that made the ultimate difference.