M.S. Dhoni did not so much as glance back after Glenn Maxwell’s pin-point throw had found the target. He jogged past the stumps and simply carried on without waiting for the replay, head down, game long over. What chance did India have when even at this late, irrelevant stage fielders were running batsmen out with only a wicket and a half to aim at?
The World Cup, won four years ago when Dhoni had stood there majestically tucking bat under arm, had unceremoniously been wrenched out of Indian hands.
There will be bitterness and disappointment, but it must be tempered with a dose of realism. India came up against a mighty rival in its own den and fell short. At the start of the World Cup, if a semifinal exit had been predicted, it would not have seemed such an inglorious end.
India’s performances leading into Thursday had raised hopes of a victory but the team had previously not faced pressure of such magnitude during the tournament. Once Pakistan and South Africa had been subdued with giant first-innings totals, the quarterfinal place was not in doubt. The run chases against the West Indies and Zimbabwe were not straightforward, but there wasn’t a great deal at stake.
There were cracks which India had managed to paper over; they were exposed in Sydney. When the top three batsmen had failed to make big scores, Dhoni had called it a good work-out for the middle- and lower middle-order. With the exception of the captain, the batting collectively failed in the semifinals.
Where Australia batted tirelessly down to nine, India’s line-up rudely terminated with Dhoni at six. No wonder he has never been in favour of the new ODI rules; having to field four full-time bowlers leaves him with a long tail (R. Ashwin honourably excluded). Then there’s Ravindra Jadeja, an unconvincing, stammering answer to the all-rounder question.
However, the campaign cannot be deemed a failure. India had been in Australia for over two months, without a single victory to speak of, when the World Cup began. The team had not been playing wretchedly, but losing on a regular basis can have a devastating effect on dressing-room morale. How things turned around then was admirable; such things are often taken for granted but never easy to appreciate from the outside.
Pakistan was not at its best in Adelaide but India still had to make those runs; that confidence fed into the defeat of South Africa, easily the team’s best performance at the World Cup. The fast bowlers’ union, guilty of dozing off at inconvenient times in competitions past, functioned with a rare efficiency and sense of purpose. Seven teams were bowled out in seven, with Ashwin a huge factor in that story.
There is no doubt the fast bowlers faltered at the SCG; a target of 329 was simply too many in a semifinal against Australia at home. A successful run chase would have broken all manner of records; it never looked probable.
“We learned a lot out of it,” Dhoni said later. “Hopefully, what the fast bowlers have learnt on this tour, they’ll keep in mind because we won’t be playing outside the sub-continent until next year. Hopefully, they’ll have something, some storage space.”
There will be what-ifs: Dhawan not playing that shot, Kohli showing some more patience, the toss going in India’s favour, the ball hitting Aaron Finch’s pad a centimetre inside the line. But such rumination serves no purpose.
There were questions, as may be expected, about Dhoni’s future and his legacy. “What people think about me as a player or what I have done doesn’t really matter because I play for the enjoyment of the game,” he said afterwards. “The day I pack my bags, I’ll pack it, and I’ll be happy on my bike.”
