WHO WAS BLAM FOR INDIA’S DEFEAT?

Alex Hales and Jos Buttler crush India

Alex Hales and Jos Butler put on an unbeaten stand of 170 to help England defeat India by 10 wickets in the second semi-final of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in Adelaide on Thursday.

The England opening duo put on a stellar show in Adelaide as they went on the charge against the Indian bowlers right from the beginning of their innings. It was Hales, who smashed the Indian bowlers earlier in the innings, as Butler played the second fiddle. But the English skipper joined the party in the second half of the innings, as soon as England got a firm grip on the match.

Dominant England seals final berth with an easy win over India | Match Highlights | T20WC 2022

Match Highlights: England beat India by a resounding 10 wickets to seal a meeting with Pakistan in the final of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022.
Their partnership helped England in chasing down 169 with all 10 wickets and 24 balls to spare. Hales remained unbeaten on 86 from just 47 deliveries, while Butler scored 80* from 49 deliveries

Hardik Pandya's superb knock helps India get to a competitive total

Earlier, India had a difficult start to their innings as they lost the wicket of KL Rahul early. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma tried to build a partnership, but some really tight bowling by the England bowlers didn't allow them to score at a swift rate.

Rohit departed for 27 from 28 deliveries in the ninth over of the innings, whereas Suryakumar also perished soon for 14. But Kohli and Pandya stuck around and took the game deep. Kohli got dismissed just after scoring his fifty in the 18th over. But Pandya carried on and went on an onslaught to take India to a competitive score of 168/6 in their 20 overs. Pandya's efforts helped India in adding 68 runs in the last five overs, 54 of which came from Pandya's bat.

Who Was To Blame For India’s Defeat?

Ball-tracking data suggests Rohit was wrong to say his bowlers didn’t bowl the right lines.

In the aftermath of India’s astonishing ten-wicket defeat against England in the World Cup Semi-Final, there will be a lot of introspection, analysis and discussion about where things went wrong for India.

Clearly, when a team loses by ten wickets the bowling attack understandably comes under the microscope and Rohit Sharma was quick to point his finger of blame at his bowlers.

“I thought we still batted pretty well at the back end to get to that score, but we weren’t good enough with the ball,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation. “It was definitely not a wicket where a team could come and chase down [that target] in 16-17 overs. But yeah, these things happen. Like I said, with the ball, we just didn’t turn up today.”

Rohit went on to blame the lines bowled by India’s bowlers as being his main frustration.

“We wanted to keep it tight, not give room, we looked at Adelaide pretty well, we know where the runs are scored. The Square of the wicket is what we were quite aware of, and that’s where all the runs went today. Keeping it tight is something we spoke of, but from there if the batsman plays a good shot we’ll take it. But that is something that didn’t happen today, and that is a little disappointing.”

However, a ball-tracking analysis of both teams’ bowling shows that this was not the case. The beehive below shows all the boundaries scored by right-handers (Rishabh Pant hit one boundary) and it clearly shows that England’s boundaries generally came from balls on a considerably tighter line than India’s – who were more effective at punishing wide balls.

The fact India scored more boundaries off wide balls should come as little surprise, because across the innings the data shows that India actually bowled significantly straighter than England – contrary to Rohit’s post-match analysis. England bowled more bowls down the leg and wide than India, who were more effective at staying on a tight stump line.

There certainly are strong and fair arguments that, particularly once the ball stops swinging, India’s bowling attack – without a high pace quick or a wrist spinner – lacks a wicket-taking threat, and England’s brilliance brutally exposed that in the run-chase. However, to say that India’s lines were the problem appears to be inaccurate.

Perhaps a fairer assessment of where India lost the game came from their coach Rahul David, who in his post-match press conference admitted that after 15 overs, when India had scored 100 for 3, they were “15 or 20 runs shy of where we should have been.”

Why might that have been the case?

According to our Match Impact model, the failures of KL Rahul (5 of 5), Sharma himself (27 off 28) and the struggles of Pandya (9 not out of 12) at the 15th over had cost India a total of exactly 20 runs. India had Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 43 off 35, earning +7 impact, to thank that their net batting impact stood at -13 after 15 overs.

NB: the reason why Rahul’s impact is worse than Rohit’s is that the earlier in the innings a wicket is lost, the more costly it is. Rohit then managed to accrue some extra impact thanks to his stabilizing after the loss of an early wicket, but his slow scoring rate and eventual dismissal still cost India.

Ultimately, thanks to Hardik’s explosive finish, India finished up with a total of 168. The nature of those death overs created something of a perception that India was in charge of the game, but according to our Pitch Viz model – which uses ball-tracking data to assess a par total – the par score on that pitch was 176, leaving India eight runs shy of par – typically amounting to around 10% win probability.

Against a batting-heavy team such as England, you could make a case that India not only needed to get to par, but they needed to get beyond it. Ultimately, England batted so well—and India lacked a wicket-taking threat—that even a total of 180 or 185 might not have been enough, but there appears to be more nuance to this defeat than simply the bowling.

Ultimately, no single player or group of players is ever to blame for a defeat—rather they are a combination of a multitude of factors—but when pointing the finger of blame squarely at his bowlers, Rohit might be advised to perhaps look a little closer to home.

What next?

England's massive win against India has helped them in setting up a T20 World Cup final clash against Pakistan. Both teams finished second from their respective groups in the Super 12s, and their chances of securing a semi-final spot at one stage looked very unlikely. But both sides made a terrific comeback not only to reach the semis but also to go all the way to the finals. The two teams last met in a World Cup final in 1992, which Pakistan won. England will be looking to set the record straight now by lifting the trophy at the iconic MCG in Melbourne.