Sourav Ganguly Says India's T20 World Cup Performance "Poorest" In Recent Times

Former India captain and current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly referred to India's performance in the recently-concluded T20 World Cup 2021 in the UAE and Oman as the "poorest" that he has seen "in last four-five years". India failed to qualify for the knockouts of the T20 World Cup. Their chances took a beating after they lost to Pakistan and New Zealand in the Super 12 stage. The Virat Kohli-led side had to depend on run-rate and results of other matches to stand a chance of qualifying for the semi-finals, which didn't happen. 

India did beat Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia in their next three matches comfortably but the stars did not align as Pakistan and New Zealand did not make a single mistake in the group and advanced to the last four stage of the tournament.

Ganguly said India were quite good in the 2017 Champions Trophy and the 2019 ODI Word Cup -- both in England but their performance in the 2021 T20 World Cup was not up to the mark.

"To be honest, 2017 [and] 2019, I think India was good. 2017 Champions Trophy we lost the final to Pakistan at the Oval, I was a commentator then. Then the 2019 World Cup in England, we were exceptional right throughout, beat everyone and lost to New Zealand in the semi-final -- one bad day and the entire good work for two months was just wiped away," he said in a conversation with Boria Majumdar on his show "Backstage with Boria."

"[I am] a little disappointed with the way we played this World Cup. I think this has been the poorest of all what I have seen in the last four-five years," added the former Indian captain.

Pakistan beat India by 10 wickets while New Zealand thrashed them by 8 wickets. The former opening batter did not point out any particular reason behind India's below-average show in the ICC event but added that the team did not play to it's full potential in their first two matches.

"I don't know what's the reason but I just felt they did not play with enough freedom this World Cup. Sometimes it happens in big tournaments, you just get stuck and when I saw them playing against Pakistan and New Zealand - I just felt this was the team which was playing to 15 per cent of its ability. And sometimes you can't just a finger on it that this is the reason why it happened," he added.

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team Sourav Ganguly ICC T20 World Cup 2021 Cricket