The verdict's out on India's performance

Given their early exit in the ICC Champions Trophy, Rohit Mahajan writing in Outlook, believes India’s celebrated, all-star team of young cricketers has slipped and the sparkle has certainly dulled.

Men like Sreesanth or Munaf Patel have limped away to the sidelines, out of the reckoning; R.P. Singh and Praveen Kumar have lost the edge. Then there are the batsmen—Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Robin Uthappa, Manoj Tewary, to name just a quartet of the best prospects. This was the bunch expected to form the nucleus of the Indian squad, meant to wage war for the 2011 World Cup.

Suresh Menon in his column in Dreamcricket.com pinpoints the two weak aspects of the performance in South Africa - disastrous fielding and over-friendly bowling.

It might be unfair to write off the Indian team after one tournament. Skipper Dhoni himself appeared a bit confused – after all, India lost one match, another was washed out, and they won one, so mathematically it wasn’t so bad. But top teams don’t look for excuses, they go out and rectify their problems.

On the same website, Partab Ramchand hopes MS Dhoni's luck does not turn on him with a vengeance like it turned on Ajit Wadekar during the disastrous tour of England in 1974.