World Cup 2019: Why India's campaign wasn't a failure despite the team crashing out in the semi-finals

Back to the drawing board? Not quite

Where do we go from here?

Here's a question. Would anyone be asking for a major change in the squad makeup had we won the World Cup? Of course not. If we'd won the match? Doubt it.

Then why talk about a complete overhaul thanks to one disastrous second half of a game?

Naysayers would exclaim that the nature of the sport demands you be the dominant side throughout the match. After all, like they rightly say, cricket is a game of two halves.

Team India went into the World Cup with what some would call the strongest line-up the team had seen in decades. And despite being marred by injuries, the team came good. A failure in one match shouldn't be a call to axe half the dressing room.

The end of every World Cup has been seen as just the beginning of preparations for the next one; it's only the biggest sporting extravaganza in the world of cricket. But Virat Kohli and the team management must back the players they've thrown their weights behind.

He’s played 8 Odis ! It’s not his fault he will learn and get better it’s not pathetic at all ! However we all are entitled to share our opinions 👍

— yuvraj singh (@YUVSTRONG12) July 10, 2019

Young guns like Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini and Shubman Gill are waiting for their turns in the wings. But our current squad is a young one as well, with a lot of cricket and improvement waiting for them. It's going to be hard to strike that delicate balance between giving a shot to new players versus trying to keep the morale high in the players already in the squad. And that's where the true test of captaincy will lie for Kohli.

---

The Dhoni conundrum

End of the road for Dhoni?

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's impending retirement has been a bit of a Damocles' sword on the team and the fans for quite a bit now. For a man who has shouldered the dream of a billion Indians on his shoulders, the swashbuckling former captain of team India had started to look all too human in 2019.

Back in January, as India trail blazed through Australia, Dhoni suffered from some intense cramps in Adelaide and his then 37-years showed painfully on his body. Despite a loaded Indian Premier League campaign, Dhoni looked a shadow of himself during the World Cup - almost like he'd switched off and couldn't find a way to turn into the man he became on the field for India for over a decade.

There were sparks of his cool, brilliant demeanour during the England and Wales World Cup tour, but those were far and too few in between. Thus bringing up the inevitable, dreaded question - is this it for Dhoni?

When he gave up the captaincy to Kohli, many of his loyal fans thought that was that for Captain Cool. But in hindsight, it looked like a move in anticipation for the World Cup preparations. But the elephant in the room must be addressed now.

When the next World Cup rolls in, Dhoni will be 42 and it's quite clear he's not willing to go on for that long. With his departure, the question isn't 'Who will be the next wicketkeeper?' but 'Who will fill that void?'.

And while we take heart in the World Cup campaign we've had and celebrate Dhoni, this question is probably going to haunt Kohli & co. for months to come.