Adelaide: This has not reached the South Africa level. But India have developed a rather frustrating pattern in the knockout matches of ICC World Cups in the last decade.
In 2015, India lost to Australia in the semifinals of the 50-over World Cup. A year later, they could not go past West Indies in the semifinal of the T20 World Cup despite posting a total in excess of 190.
India had reached the semifinal of the 50-over World Cup in 2019 in Australia but stumbled against New Zealand.
India would certainly like to snap that pattern when they face England in the semifinal of the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday.
Unfamiliar grounds
In some sense, both the teams will have a sense of unfamiliarity coming to this match. The last time these two teams faced each other in the knockout phase of an ICC tournament was in 2013.
On that occasion, India under MS Dhoni had beaten England in the final of the Champions Trophy. Before that only twice India had faced England in the knockouts of a global tournament — in 1983 and in 1987.
In the 1983 World Cup, India beat England in the semis and four years down the road England returned the favour in Kolkata.
Group effort needed
While the T20 format is not usually reliant on such past records and patterns, India skipper Rohit Sharma admitted the need for the team to chip in as a whole in matches as important as knockouts.
“It's a simple logic — knockout games — because you get to play only once and there's only one opportunity to do well,” said Rohit.
But Rohit maintained that a performance or the lack of it will not define a player as the process of getting to that stage too is important.
Not a life-changing event
“It’s important to realise and understand what sort of effort you put in the entire year to come to that stage. But for us, I think, not just for me but for the players, what they've done in their entire career doesn't define them by just one knockout game.
“The entire year you work so hard to get where you want to and to do well in whichever format you play. So, that one particular game is not going to decide that,” said Rohit.
The India captain also did not deny the fact that doing well in crunch games and situations will boost the confidence of a player, in turn of the team.
“If you do well, it gives you that immense confidence. But we do not forget what has happened in the past, what the players have done in the past. All the performances that they've put in for the team over the year, that one game cannot be dictating that,” he said.
England might feel the same too as they have been a storm force in the white-ball format in recent times, playing a brand of cricket that resembled a pop band performance. Remember their march in the 2019 World Cup under Eoin Morgan?
But in Australia, they hardly looked like that fearsome unit, and you can attribute it to anything from pitch to weather.
India have a pattern to break. England have a legacy to live upto. So whose day it will be at the Adelaide Oval?
