World T20: India no favourites, don’t believe the hype; trust Rohit, he has a plan

India will need to shed its Most Valuable Player culture, and follow the shoot & scoot rule of scoring runs.
That all-too-familiar chant has started ringing – the World T20 Cup is once again coming home, back to its spiritual abode, India. A couple of foreign experts, yet to unpack their luggage after their enriching IPL commentary trip to India, vouch that it will. Even money is being put where the mouth is – the English betting firms call India the favourite.

That old dream is being sold again and shopping carts are getting loaded. The packaging has thos old visuals – Tarzan-like MS Dhoni with hair blowing in the wind. They are from the 2007 inaugural Cup in South Africa that India won. To avoid shattering of unreasonable expectations, the hidden fine print needs to be magnified.

Disclaimer: After 2007, Dhoni failed 5 times – 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016. Virat Kohli also returned empty handed and so did Rohit Sharma in the last edition at Australia. Since 2008, the year of the Indian Premier League, the Cup hasn’t come home.

Can Rohit change that this time? It wouldn’t be easy and India aren’t the favourites. A highly untested team, the present bunch in the US haven’t played together for more than a year. In the last 12 months, the T20I team has seen musical chairs with Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit taking turns to lead the side.

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