Bhuvneshwar Kumar said that it is no easy to mention one particular reason for India’s poor performance in the ICC trophy since 2013. He mentioned that Indians have lost crucial matches due to unfortunate incident.
Bhuvi trying to identify reasons of losing ICC trophies
Since 2013 India have not won any ICC trophy despite maintaining good enough dominance in world cricket. Bhuvneshwar Kumar who was a part of Dhoni-led Champions Trophy squad in 2013 told ESPNCricinfo, “The last we won was the Champions Trophy in 2013. And since then, there have been only 3-4 ICC tournaments and we have made it to the semis or the finals about 2-3 times. In the 2015 World Cup, we lost to Australia in the semi-final. And in the 2019 World Cup, it was bad luck. An early loss of three top-order batsmen cost us the game. It rarely happens that in a match after dismissing the opposition for, under 250, you are get bowled out.”
While trying to find out reasons Bhuvi recalled how good Indians were with individual performances in the last World Cup but still had to exit from the semi-final stage. “In that entire World Cup, Rohit Sharma had scored five or six centuries, K.L. Rahul was in good form, Virat Kohli played as always and we had MS Dhoni as well in the team.” He recalled, “Even in the 2017 Champions Trophy final, things changed after Jasprit Bumrah’s no-ball. It’s not like we’ve had a one-sided loss or we went down without a fight.”
Unfortunate event of incident to be blamed
Bhuvneshwar although believes that it is because of unfortunate event or incident that India have not won any ICC trophy after Champions Trophy 2013. “We’ve always lost due to an unfortunate event or incident. Although, the 2017 Champions Trophy final was a one-sided loss where they outplayed us.”
He opined, “And it’s difficult to pin-point the exact reason for the loss. But losing these knockout matches masks the fact that we actually played very well through those tournaments.”
