Questions arise on Virat Kohli’s white-ball captaincy

DUBAI: India’s superstar cricketers were pummelled on a second-straight Sunday as a disciplined New Zealand firmly pushed them towards the exit door with an easy eight-wicket victory in the ICC T20 World Cup here.

The defeat that puts India in serious danger of losing out on a semi-final berth also raises questions about outgoing T20 skipper Virat Kohli’s abject failure to win an ICC tournament in four attempts as captain.

While Kohli is set to step down from T20 captaincy, this defeat puts his ODI leadership future also in doubt.

If Pakistan match was a humiliating experience, the encounter against New Zealand was embarrassing to say the least as a meagre target of 111 was chased down by Daryl Mitchell (49 off 35 balls) and skipper Kane Williamson (33 not out off 31 balls) in only 14.3 overs.

This was after India managed 110 for 7 in 20 overs in which they didn’t effectively score runs in nine of those overs (54 dot balls).

ANALYSIS: India stares at group stage exit from T20 World Cup after 8-wicket defeat to New Zealand

Worse, they were just able to hit a single boundary between overs 8 and 15 when two spinners were in operation.

The equation for India now gets muddled up and only Afghanistan’s victory over New Zealand can raise hopes of an outside chance to qualify for the semi-finals.

That too if they win all their remaining matches against Afghanistan, Namibia and Scotland.

But for all practical purposes, Kohli’s team, with its archaic version of T20 cricket, does not deserve a place in the last four.

New Zealand exposed the outfit’s inadequacies, mostly poor mindset and atrocious shot selection, something that was exploited to the hilt by Pakistan just a week back.

Post World T20, a lot of senior players may not be seen playing the shortest format as the one thing that this team swears by — playing fearless cricket — was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed like catching practice for the New Zealand team as most of the batters were out in the deep trying to force the pace and failing miserably.