There are no favourites in T20: Dhoni

10 Jun 2009,


NOTTINGHAM: We're done with the public shows of unity. Done with the mystery over Virender Sehwag's injury. Done with the slanging match with the media.

It's time for MS Dhoni's Team India to forget the mystery and melodrama of the past few days and focus on the Super Eights of the World Twenty20.

India face West Indies at Lord's on Friday, England at Lord's again on Sunday and South Africa at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.

They are three tough and dangerous sides and one wrong move here or a game where the team is not switched on will see Dhoni lose the trophy.

The team, too, will shed the aura that has surrounded them since September 24, 2007, the day they were crowned T20 World Champions.

After two warm-up games against tough opposition, India have had two outings against Bangladesh and Ireland. But that should not lull the champs into believing that the same will happen again in the Super 8s.

We witnessed the kind of carnage that West Indies captain Chris Gayle and opening partner Andre Fletcher inflicted on the Aussies.

We saw how efficiently South Africa defended a low target against New Zealand and much to the delight of the home fans, one also got a display of spunk and attitude from England when they embarrassed Pakistan.

India must win at least two of the three games they are scheduled to play in the Super 8s to progress to the semifinals.

Virender Sehwag's departure will no doubt hurt as he has the quality and reputation which makes rival teams over-analyse his strengths.

Sehwag has that uncanny ability to put opposition teams on the backfoot even before a ball is bowled but India won't have that luxury now.

In a strange way, though, that might also prove to be a blessing in disguise as there is no uncertainty surrounding his availability.

He is out of the tournament and Rohit Sharma, who has batted magnificently as an opener, will stay put in that slot.

If left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan can recover to full fitness, Indian worries over the pace bowling department (they have been poor especially in the death overs), will ease.

India's record as defending champions isn't great. They have defended only one crown with success. The Dilip Vengsarkar-led side had won the Asia Cup in 1988 in Dhaka and Mohd Azharuddin won the event in 1991 in Calcutta. Apart from that every attempt at a title defence has ended in heartbreak.

The tag of title favourites sits very uncomfortably on every Indian team. They were favourites in the 1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan and lost in the semis to England in Mumbai.

Again in 1996, they were out and out favourites but their campaign again ended in the semis in shambolic fashion at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta. In 1999, in England, they were the most hyped team as India had Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly all in peak form. However, they lost in the Super Six and skipper Mohd Azharuddin lost the captaincy for good.

This time again, India are the favourites and rightly so. After all, the core of the team that won in South Africa two years ago is the same. Ask Dhoni about it and he will let you know about his nausea for the F-word. Time and again he has reminded that, "In T20, there are no favourites. We don't want to look too much into the future. We want to focus on the present."

Call them boring, politically correct answers, or a smart move to deflect the attention and pressure. He knows there's a lot of hype surrounding the world champions and there's plenty of money riding on them too. Everyone's talking about India, even their most fierce rivals, the Aussies.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting, after exiting from the tournament, put India as joint favourites along with South Africa and Sri Lanka to win the title. "I'll be very surprised if one of these teams don't win it," he said.

Indian fans won't be surprised if Dhoni's boys don't win. They will be very very angry and will lay the blame on all the off-the-field nonsense for the team's failure.