After his unbeaten 97 against the West Indies on Sunday, Sanju Samson knelt down in prayer and thanked the heavens. Perhaps a few others should have joined him as their survival depended on his divine intervention.
Had Samson not reversed the script at the Eden Gardens, India would have been knocked out of the T20 World Cup and the knives would have been out for him, captain Suryakumar Yadav, Abhishek Sharma, Hardik Pandya and possibly Varun Chakravarthy too.
India have advanced to the semi-finals, but don’t let the results fool you. This is a team that has survived on individual brilliance rather than collective excellence. The winnings are in the column, but the cracks are very much on the wall for all to see. Knives go back in the drawer for now. But not the problems.
Former Pakistan pacer Mohammad Amir read India correctly. “If I analyze it purely from a cricketing point of view, India is not playing good cricket overall. I keep telling you – just look at the way they are fielding. They drop three to four catches and fumble in the field. Every other bowler is getting hit except for Bumrah. India is playing on the power of a single bowler,” he argued on the cricket show.
Duck stories
There is a famous story from the 1983-84 West Indies tour of India. Sunil Gavaskar, in a rare departure from his usual role as an opener, came in at No.4 in an attempt to neutralize the West Indies’ pace attack. When he reached the crease, the scoreboard read 0 to 2. Viv Richards, never one to miss a beat, smiled and said, “Man, it doesn’t matter where you shoot, it’s still zero.”
Does this sound familiar? In the first matches of this World Cup, India experimented with three opening combinations. Four times in a row, however, the score indicator showed 0/1. And the problem persists.
Samson is back between runs. But Abhishek is woefully out of form and even Ishan Kishan is struggling. There is a saying in northern India that loosely translates to: “The old man died, but a child was born. And we remained the same.”
With every revival of Samson, there is a collapse of Abhishek. Every Tilak Varma portrait has a Suryakumar scratch. For every rescue act by Shivam Dube, there is a failure by Hardik Pandya. India recycles this issue through different jerseys and different matches. Faces change. Scorecard no.
Against West Indies Abhishek, Ishan, Surya and Hardik failed with low and slow shot. Between them they scored 55 runs off 46 balls. Samson scored 97 out of 50. Passengers outnumbered pilots. The pilot nevertheless landed the plane.
The next flight is to Mumbai against England. Jofra Archer, Liam Dawson and Adil Rashid will keep a close eye on West Indies’ chase. They know exactly which passengers to target and pass much faster than the Caribbean all-rounders.
One man’s problem
Indian bowling is on a wing called Jasprit Bumrah and a prayer. Other? Very expensive, often wayward, occasionally both.
Varun Chakravarthy is the most worrying individual bowling story of the tournament. Chakravarthy couldn’t get the length right and seems guilty of experimenting too much. His growing ineffectiveness hurt India badly on almost every front.
Axar Patel has been India’s most consistent spinner. He is economical, disciplined, can bowl to both right-handers and left-handers without giving away easy matches. But Axar is a holding force, not a wicket-taker. In knockout cricket you need both.
Pandya’s bowling was functional. But he’s the fifth pitcher who bats fourth.
India don’t have a bowling attack – they only have Bumrah. And if any of the bowlers are off, India won’t know where to hide.
India’s sixth bowler problem has been cricket’s worst-kept secret for two years and India still haven’t solved it. Against England’s heavy hitters, this unresolved equation could be the difference between the final and the flight home.
Butter fingers
Against West Indies, with a semi-final berth on the line, India lost three catches. Abhishek fell by an absolute session in the fifth game bowled by Bumrah. He later dropped another catch that could have put out Rovman Powell. (Abhishek in aggregate dropped two catches, scored 10 with the bat and bowled 11 balls. It is hard to imagine a more complete failure by a single player in a single match.)
Tilak Varma added to the damage when the shot went through his hands and trickled for a six as he settled too far beyond the boundary.
This was a disturbing pattern. According to Cricbuzz, India now have 13 dropped catches in the T20 World Cup 2026, the most of any team in the Super 8 stage. Their catch efficiency is barely 72 per cent, the worst of any team that has advanced to the Super 8 stage.
All bets are off
Add it all up. A top order that cannot be trusted. A bowling attack that starts and ends with one man. A field unit that buckles under pressure.
The mind says all bets are off. But the heart says, Oh dear, this is India. A team that, like a nation, even at its most chaotic and unconvincing, finds a way.
Maybe released catches were released. Maybe batting weaknesses were confronted. Maybe this team is saving the best for last. Maybe India will always be saved by Samson. Maybe Mumbai is just another chapter of the same story, this time with 11 heroes.
Sandipan Sharma, our guest writer, likes to write about cricket, film, music and politics. They believe they are connected.
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– The end
Issued by:
Kingshuk Kusari
Published on:
02 March 2026 19:19 IST
