5 Reasons why India lost to Pak in their opening tie of the World T20 Series 2021

Well, no Indian could really digest what happened in Dubai on Sunday. Men in Blue went down to register their first ever defeat from the hands of Pakistan in a World Series. After 12-0, 13 proved to be very unlucky as Kohli’s men lost to Pakistan by 10 wickets. Something which has never happened to them in a T20I ever. The fans were disappointed obviously but no one really talked about the mistakes they made on the pitch. We kind of figured out what were the mistakes that our team made. Here are five reasons that made the difference –

1) Exclusion of Shardul Thakur

The exclusion of Shardul Thakur has got to be the biggest factor and we expect him to be back into the team as soon as possible. He won the Indian t20 league for Chennai and whenever captain Dhoni wanted a wicket, he was the man who delivered. With pace and ability to take wickets at any point in the match, Shardul could have been the X-Factor that team India missed.

2) Bhuvneshwar instead of Bumrah

When the captain gave the bowl to Bhuvneshwar in the first over, most of the fans were really surprised. India scored just 151 runs and thus needed wickets upfront. Bringing Jasprit Bumrah right from the start could have been instrumental for the team as he could have given the kind of start India needed. Who knows? He could have even taken a wicket. Not giving the bowl to the premiere bowler of the country was definitely a mistake.

3) Fitness of Hardik Pandya

By the looks of it, Hardik Pandya was not only fit to bowl but also to play the match. While batting, he once again got injured and was ruled out of the match later on. Did India rush with Hardik and made a mistake? Maybe, a fit batsman could have done something that the others couldn’t.

4) No backup plan

India’s middle order and lower middle order is filled with power hitters. Be it Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant or Ravindra Jadeja, no one is really known for building an innings. Yes, they are fantastic t20 batsmen but maybe someone like Shreyas Iyer would have been good and could have paced the innings beautifully and give Virat Kohli the support that he desperately needed.

5) A Jaded Varun Chakravarthy    

This really doesn’t fall in the category of mistakes but the mystery spinner was very pale against Pakistan. There was a lot of hope but obviously he couldn’t deliver. Now interestingly, Ravi Ashwin was fantastic in the second warm-up match against Australia. However, did India ever consider him?

Yes, we know if Kohli would have played Ashwin instead of Varun and if they would have lost the match, the captain would have faced a lot of criticism. Also, there are a lot of ifs in this article. However, the game of cricket is all about what if!