India's unhealthy losing habit

In his column for Star Sports , Aakash Chopra dives deep into how consistent defeats are hurting India's strategy ahead of their World Cup defence.

The Indian world cup team has had a horrid run to the beginning of their title defence and that can't be a good sign. The first byproduct of such a long losing streak is that you start fiddling with the playing XI too often. Since the Champions Trophy in 2013 in England, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was India's new ball bowler but now, he seems to be fighting for a place in the side with Stuart Binny. Bhuvneshwar isn't looking a 100% but the idea to replace Kumar with Binny has little to do with latter's bowling prowess, for it's his ability batting lower down the order that's tilted the balance in his favour. MS Dhoni is insisting that India needs multi-utility players and hence he's tempted to play bowlers who can bat. It's worth noting that this wasn't India's game plan for the last three years.