Kirsten throws in more spice!

Indian coach Gary Kirsten believes that IPL wearied the Indian players who played 14 Twenty20 games at the end of a hectic schedule before the competition.

Kirsten throws in more spice!

Kirsten also told a London newspaper he believes IPL is essentially a "club tournament that did not fully prepare India for the competition".

"IPL is a domestic competition, a club competition in many respects," the coach said. "Whilst you have international players in the team you've got first-class cricketers making up the rest. There was a reasonably big gap between what is happening at IPL and what is happening internationally and that is only natural."

"We had a bunch of players who were quite tired. We have had a demanding schedule and we never got ourselves to the required intensity for the standard and quality of the international game, which is higher than IPL. We weren't an energetic team.

"We have played really well in Test cricket and one-dayers but we haven't fired as a T20 side and that is quite interesting.

"In 2007 India had a young explosive team and everyone else was finding their feet. Now everyone has caught up and we are being matched in all departments," Kirsten said.

Meanwhile, Lalchand Rajput, who coached India's Twenty20 World Cup winning team in 2007, has underlined India's weakness against short-pitched bowling by West Indies and England.

"They knew that some of our players were not comfortable against the bouncing ball. They used that weapon very well," Rajput said.

However, the former coach conceded that IPL had helped players from other countries learn the complexities of T20 cricket.

"Most of the foreigners in World Twenty20 have played two seasons of IPL, so all the other teams have got a hang of Twenty20 and there's better planning in place this time."

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