With dew respect!

Virat Kohli. Pic/AFP

Before the Pakistan match, Indian captain Virat Kohli had asserted that the Men in Blue had ticked all boxes and covered all bases. It's quite apparent after the 10-wicket defeat that they had not prepared for the dew factor.

People may consider a critic wiser after the event, but the fact is, India faltered by going in with just five bowlers, especially knowing that dew could be an issue and also playing a half-fit Hardik Pandya when the need was for a bowling all-rounder.

India also missed an experienced bowler like Ravichandran Ashwin, though Kohli asserted that any other bowling option would also have been futile in prevailing conditions.

Tough to bat

"I wouldn't say that it became very, very difficult [to bowl], but if the pitch becomes a little better to bat on, you get off to a start, you start feeling more confident about the chase and that's what happened. The more dew came in towards the second half of the Pakistan innings, 10 overs onwards, they were able to rotate strike. We weren't even able to get dot balls in because the pitch was obviously providing a bit more pace for the batsmen to work with. The slower balls were not holding up as much," the captain said.

Surely, it wasn't just a matter of losing the toss. No doubt, India got the worst of the conditions, but when you have limited bowling resources and if a bowler or two have an off-day, and there is no option to fall back upon, then things can turn sour. That in nutshell was India's plight.

The listless performance of the bowlers as a unit was too obvious to be overlooked for the remaining games.

The good thing is that India have a week's break before the next match on Sunday against New Zealand to get back to the drawing board and rework their strategy and also have practice sessions to iron things out.

‘Break will help'

"I think it [the break] works really well for us as we will have time to reflect and prepare again. It will help us to re-group as a team to get to the practice sessions, eager to execute the things we want to and prepare in a very confident manner and then arrive on the day again to make sure this time we execute our plans. We have enough confidence in our ability that with this preparation time we will come out once again being in a positive frame of mind," said Kohli.

Obviously, losing to Pakistan for the first time in a World Cup game has been a big blow to India's campaign as well as pride, but it should be taken as a wake-up call. And it's good that Kohli realises that. "It's the start of the tournament, not the end. We're certainly not a team that presses the panic button," asserted the skipper.

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No. of times Pakistan have beaten India in a World Cup clash

Also read: IND v PAK: Winning one game not end of world - Kohli; accepts being 'outplayed'