It is bitter truth that India has not won a single ICC event trophy since winning the Champions Trophy in 2013. In the last 10 years, India has had 10 opportunities to break this drought. The most recent one being the ODI World Cup 2023, which culminated just a few days ago.
Cricket analysts and experts say that India chokes in the knockout stages of major ICC events. Some of this is outright bias and envy and has come from quarters that do not appreciate India’s current status in world cricket.
Choking in sports is defined as a dramatic drop in athletic performance under pressure. It is important to note India’s last 10 performances in ICC competitions — it’s been the runner-up five times and a semi-finalist on four occasions. The only occasion when India did not reach the knockout stage was during the T20 World Cup in 2021. This clearly shows that India does not have a dramatic drop in athletic performance during ICC events but is a major force in world cricket.
In order to explain choking better we can take the example of our neighbouring cricketing nation, Pakistan. A example of choking could be Pakistan’s 0-8 record against India in ODI World Cup matches. It suggests that in the last 32 years, Pakistan could not cope with the pressure of a match against India in the World Cup even before a ball is bowled.
Choking invariably comes with a batting collapse, which we saw in the India vs Pakistan game in the 2023 World Cup. Pakistan got a very good batting start, and yet its batting collapsed in a dramatic fashion. On several occasions, Pakistan has been unable to bat the full quota of 50 overs in World Cup matches against India. India did not collapse against Australia in the 2023 World Cup final. It simply batted slowly and with less courage.
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Intense pressure
It is an open secret that every time India enters an ICC event, there is a huge pressure on the team. This pressure comes from the Indian team’s huge fan base. India’s 10-year record suggests that it has never wilted under pressure. If such was the case then the team would not have been finalists five times. India has been in the reckoning in every ICC event and is a strong contender for the trophy.
Indeed, this is a long phase of no trophies and a cause of concern. In trying to find an answer, I casually turned to the Editor in Chief of ThePrint, Shekhar Gupta. He and I have had many disagreements during our cricket conversations. We rarely have a common view when it comes to cricket analysis. Having said that, I was compelled to look deeper into a phrase he used and I endorsed eventually — ‘stage fright’.
A simple Google search led me to a better understanding of this phrase and what has impacted the Indian team in ICC events in the last 10 years. Stage fright is performance anxiety when an individual or group of individuals are faced with the requirement of performing in front of a captive audience. Let us put this phenomenon in perspective with regard to the men’s cricket team of India, better known as the ‘men in blue’.
The ICC suggests that almost 90 per cent of the games’ viewership lies in India. Cricket’s popularity in India is staggering. When it comes to players’ integrity, cricket regained its moral fabric very quickly after the match-fixing era of the 1990s. This century has seen the Indian cricket team become a force in world cricket. This was not the case in 1983, when the winning team was routed in a home series soon after the World Cup victory.
The consistency of the Indian cricket team has led to huge expectations from the fans. India’s cricket-crazy population puts enormous pressure on its players. Every Indian, from a rickshaw driver to a Bollywood celebrity, is a genuine stakeholder in the cricket team. The political class is also not far away. What football is in South America, cricket is in India.
Performing in front of a frenzied captive audience leads to performance anxiety. Perhaps even an element of phobia, which was evident when India batted in the 2023 WC final. It is wrong to say that this is choking. It is actually ‘stage fright’.
Kush Singh @singhkb is founder, The Cricket Curry Tour Company. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)