Thread by @deeputalks

Some numbers from India's #T20WorldCup campaign. To start, India arrived in Australia winning 26/35 T20Is after last year's WC smashing everyone in bilaterals. The brilliance of SKY, Hardik and their new ball bowlers masked their various other inefficiencies in this tournament.

India were the best team in batting Powerplay bw the two WCs with an average of 52 runs in the first six overs. This World Cup, they scored at 6.02 per over in Powerplay - only UAE scored at a lower rate than India in this phase.

India's top order were blown away on spicy tracks against quality bowling attacks of 🇵🇰 (31/3) and 🇿🇦 (33/2). In the other four games on better batting tracks they scored 32/1 v 🇳🇱, 37/1 v 🇧🇩, 46/1 v 🇿🇼 & 38/1 v 🇬🇧.

They preferred to survive rather than cash in as the scores suggest - in none of those four games they lost more than one wicket yet they never really took it to the opposition.
Rahul scored 68 off 76 balls (4 outs)
Rohit 72 off 76 (4 outs)
Kohli 50 off 51 (no dismissals)

Talking about bowling Powerplay, India were massively reliant on swing and Bhuvneshwar and Arshdeep turned up big time putting India in the ascendancy in four of the six games, failing to do so only in the two games at Adelaide Oval.

The problem was that India did not have Bumrah to sustain the pressure post PP or a wrist spinner to give breakthroughs in the middle overs. 🇵🇰 & 🇿🇦 rebuilt during this phase while England cashed in on the two finger spinners who found little help in Adelaide under lights.

Excluding the matches against 🇳🇱 & 🇿🇼, the two finger spinners had combined figures of 1/169 in 17 overs at an ER of 10 rpo. Axar bowled 6 overs in these 3 games and a better call would have been to play Hooda instead as second spinner with Hardik covering up with enough overs.

Hardik stood out with the ball in middle overs these games making crucial strikes against 🇵🇰 & 🇧🇩 while in the two games he failed, India ended up losing - vs 🇿🇦 and the semifinal.

Already without their best bowler, India further handicapped themselves benching their wicket taking leg spinner in conditions that called for wrist spin. The additional batting depth offered by Ashwin did not necessarily translate to better intent from their top order either.

India made several defensive selection calls, reverted back to their safety first batting approach despite a weakened bowling unit which were masked by individual brilliance or weak oppositions in the games they won but cost them against quality teams.

Against a team like England heavily skewed towards batting, India batted conservatively (100/3 in first 15 overs) and had no Plan B when the new ball didn't yield breakthroughs. A safety first batting approach has knocked out India in yet another T20 World Cup!!!