A zillion plus cricket fans in India hoped against the hope of Afghanistan defeating the Kiwis. But as it so happened, Kane & Co. rather comfortably, and much deservedly so, made it to the final four of the tournament bringing curtains down on India’s campaign, rendering its last match against Namibia inconsequential.

Looking back on the four matches played by the Indian team thus far in the tournament, they have no one else but themselves to blame for the early exit. They have failed to be consistent which ultimately resulted in them depending on other results in order for them to qualify. The losses in the opening games versus Pakistan and New Zealand hurt India’s chances tremendously, virtually knocking them out inside the first week unless some other results went in their favor. In this format of the game, there are no clear favorites as such, since any team on their day can beat the best team going around purely because you only have to be that much better for only that period of time. Having said that, there is no denying the fact that India made errors, both tactically and in terms of execution.

While it was refreshing to see India play the way they did against Afghanistan and Scotland, it was, one would feel, too little too late. The brand of cricket they played was particularly endearing where fans finally got to see potential translating into performance. I won’t be surprised if they play the same dominant form of cricket and steamroll past Namibia in their last match to end the tournament, ironically, on a ‘high’, so to speak.

As Indian cricket readies itself to turn a page to the next chapter, with Kohli giving up T20I captaincy and Shastri coming to the end of his tenure, there is this pressing need to ‘Reboot and Restart’. For starters, we need a settled eleven for T20 internationals with at least 22-23 overs being available at the captain’s disposal. Rohit, who, by all means, is the next in line to lead India in the limited-overs format, has his work cut out for himself since the next edition of the World T20 will be held in a year’s time from now. Here’s hoping the winds of change bring about a change in fortunes for the team in the shortest format as well.