Abu Dhabi: Ravi Shastri’s tenure as the head coach of the India men’s cricket team has come to an end. Virat Kohli led India for the last time in T20Is in their 9-wicket win over Namibia on Monday in the T20 World Cup 2021. And that’s the end of what had been a glorious and entertaining coach-captain combination in Indian cricket’s history.
India were billed as T20 World Cup favourites after having dominated the format in the recent past, winning series against some of the best in the business, including Australia, England and New Zealand. However, they suffered a shock exit, failing to reach the semi-final of the T20 World Cup 2021, the first time they have done so in an ICC tournament since 2012. It was an anti-climax as an early exit at a World Cup is certainly not the farewell that Ravi Shastri deserved or captain Virat Kohli would have wanted. It was not a pleasant sight to see India play timid cricket in their two big matches at the World Cup after having shown the way when it comes to playing an aggressive brand of cricket across all formats in the past.
As quite a few players have stressed, a couple of bad games is not going to define this Indian cricket team. It should certainly not define what was an interesting era of cricket under the leadership of Kohi and Shastri. The numbers certainly don’t lie. While the lack of an ICC trophy will be a black mark in the Kohli-Shastri era, it’s not fair to look past what the team has achieved under them. In Tests, Shastri has won 25 out of 43 matches, 42 out of 64 T20Is and 118 out of 183 matches with an overall win-loss ratio of over 2. However, it’s not fair to look at what Shastri’s Team India has achieved with numbers as the only yardstick.
