The Cup that Counts
A decade on, I look at India's preparations for the 2011 World Cup and how it was similar to many other WC campaigns
The 2011 World Cup was tagged as “The Cup that Counts”. The marketing team that came up with that possibly did it because India, the powerhouse in world cricket, were co-hosts and one of the favorites. Also, it was going to be the last World Cup for India’s favorite son Sachin Tendulkar.
Expectations
As a 19-year old Indian fan, who traveled to 3 venues to watch matches, the World Cup certainly felt like the only thing that mattered. Nearly everyone, from key players like Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, and Zaheer Khan to lesser experienced players like Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, and Yusuf Pathan, was in good form. So the expectations were certainly high although I had predicted Sri Lanka winning an India vs Sri Lanka final prior to the start of the tournament.
As far as weaknesses were concerned, there were really two. India hadn’t quite figured out the strategy in the Batting PowerPlay between overs 40-50. In fact, the loss against South Africa was mostly due to the sudden collapse during that stage of the game. The other weakness was the 5th bowling option. Yuvraj Singh’s bowling form going into the World Cup was decent, but his batting form was a worry. Yusuf Pathan, the other all-rounder in the squad, had done well with the bat in South Africa but averaged just 4 overs per game with the ball.
Preparations
In the 2009-10 time period, both coach Gary Kirsten and skipper MS Dhoni had talked about giving players 30-odd games prior to the World Cup to allow each player to get settled into their roles, understand the team dynamics and try various combinations. They managed to do exactly that with only 3 players shown below picked with 10 or fewer matches under their belt from the start of 2009.
Images Courtesy - ESPN Cricinfo
In fact, there were only 3 players who played more than 25 ODIs since the start of 2009 but didn’t make the World Cup squad - Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, and Dinesh Karthik. There were some other niggles (Sehwag’s shoulder) but apart from Praveen Kumar, there were no major injury concerns leading into the tournament.
With a long round-robin stage, MS Dhoni picked Piyush Chawla for some of the group stage matches over Ashwin, which shocked a lot of people. But considering the Chawla had not played in 30 months, it made sense to give him some match practice in case he was needed (and I thought the same even back then).
But the planning wasn’t limited to match practice. A day before the Quarter-Final, the media found some (supposedly) official documents about India’s plans to restrict Australia to 260. And that’s exactly what the Aussies managed to put up batting 1st the next day. In addition, the Indian team was very aware of its limitations around fielding with MS Dhoni making this funny statement:
Image Courtesy - ESPN Cricinfo
But were the preparations really any different for those for the 2007 World Cup? Or any of the world cups since?
Looking at the squad for the 2007 World Cup - similar to 2011, there were only 2 players picked with less than 10 games under their belt since 2005 - veteran Anil Kumble and Robin Uthappa. And only 2 players (Suresh Raina and Mohammed Kaif) with more than 25 games in that period did not make the squad. In addition, Greg Chappell identified the team’s problem with chasing targets and then worked with the team to create a world record of most consecutive wins while chasing in ODIs.
It’s been documented that some of the players had issues with Chappell’s working style, but India still had the 3rd highest W/L ratio (amongst non-minnows) from the time Chappell took over to the start of the 2007 World Cup. A shock defeat against Bangladesh meant they exited in the 1st round, but in spite of doing most things right in the preceding 18-24 months, the form of key players like Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, and Sachin Tendulkar was a concern when they arrived in the Caribbean. Add to that, Irfan Pathan’s troubles with his action and Harbhajan averaging 38 since the start of 2005, it was unlikely that they were going to go very far even if they had beaten Bangladesh.
Now let’s look at the 2019 World Cup in a similar manner. All players who played 25+ matches since the start of 2017 were picked for the World Cup squad. Again, only 3 players with fewer than 20 games were picked - Mohammed Shami (16), KL Rahul (11), and Vijay Shankar (9). (Not counting Rishabh Pant since he was a replacement). It is definitely India’s best squad ever for a World Cup with the top quality of bowlers India possessed. On top of that, the top 3 batsmen were ranked #12, #2 and #1.
From the start of 2017, no team won matches batting 1st as frequently India did. They were behind England while chasing, but comfortably ahead of 3rd position (South Africa) overall. They won the ODI series in South Africa (5-1), Australia (2-1), West Indies (3-1), and New Zealand (4-1). They recognized the limitation of their finger spinners and found quality wrist spinners to take wickets in the middle overs. And in spite of all these right moves, an hour of top-class cricket by New Zealand meant India was out of the World Cup.
All in all, it’s clear that the process for building towards a World Cup has been in place for India right from 2005 (maybe even earlier). And generally speaking, there was little difference in what the team did in the lead-up to those 3 world cups. Winning world cups is not easy unless you are Australia of 2003. Teams have to time their peak right and then rely on luck - ask Kane Williamson - for all of it to come together.
And that’s exactly what happened in 2011 for India. Who would have bet on Yuvraj Singh picking up 15 wickets in the tournament, 6 of those in knockout games? Unlike 2019, where multiple players were replaced due to injury, it was only Praveen Kumar in 2011. While India played in seaming conditions due to the rain against NZ in 2019, Sachin Tendulkar got dropped at least 4 times in the Semi-Final vs Pakistan in 2011. MS Dhoni, who struggled to get the ball off the square in the tournament, came up with an incredible 91* in the Final after promoting himself to #4.
And for all those reasons (and many others), the cup that started with a Sehwag 4 and ended with Dhoni 6 is the one that counts!