Team India has been touted by many as the team to watch out for in the World T20 championships. However, barring strong displays against minnows, the team faltered against a relatively weaker West Indian side. The defeat brings up many issues including the large number of tactical “errors” that may have cropped up during this World Cup and the preparation that went into it. 
Despite being called the best team out there, India have made a lot of tactical errors, some that are actually leading to our downfall. here are some that I believe are their major blunders:
Time for Experimentation
It is absolutely right for the team to experiment new tactics and tricks but there is a time and a place for it. We should learn something from the International football scenario. Almost all international football games, that are not part of the world cup or continental cup, are arenas for experimentation. 
Coaches try out their formulas, players, strategies and fine tune their teams for the main goal - the World Cup.
In Cricket, we play each series to win it. So we put our best team out, stick to our strengths and play well. However, we practice and experiment in warm up games before the world cup, of which there were just two. I wonder how many things Kirsten and Dhoni could have implemented, and gotten a decent amount of feedback on, to consider their experiments a success or failure.
Number of Bowlers
The warm up games saw us play with 5 bowlers, a practice that Mahendra Dhoni and Gary Kirsten continue in the world cup as well. Unfortunately, what these guys have is short sightedness. If there was to be any sort of experimentation with the number of bowlers, then it should have been during tours and lesser series. That is when we need to experiment to perfect things for the world cup. Winning against a New Zealand or a Sri Lanka in a one-off series won’t matter; losing to them in the world cup, because we are trying out something new, will.
In a format where teams like South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka, Australia, England and Pakistan are looking for all-rounders, India has insisted on approaching the tournament with a dedicated pace battery and spin duo along with one or two all-rounders. We refuse to use Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh with the ball and stick to Ojha, Bhajji and the faster men.
What is the point of having a specialist bowler if he will give 20 in an over??? Sure, he might be having an off-day but if the specialist is giving 7-10 in an over, the part-timer will not do much worse. And to top it all, you get a batsmen too. Where is the thinking cap?
Number Three Position
Dhoni at number three was useless. Not because it was something that didn’t work, but because when the time came for Dhoni to play at number three in a game that mattered, thus implementing what was experimented, he didn’t.
If Dhoni expected himself to bat at number three, then he should have given himself more than just 2 warm-up and 2 league games against minnows. Because of this thoughtless move, Suresh Raina didn’t get any batting practice until the game against the West Indies, where, unsurprisingly, he didn’t work.
No Batting Practice
Granted that the T20 format and even its world cup isn’t given as much weightage as the One-Day World Cup format, or even the IPL for that matter. But still, it is a world cup and for India, one that they are defending champions in. So how do we prepare for it? Two warm up games out of which one was finished by the two opening batsmen only. The other we lost. Players like Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Suresh Raina - all stalwarts of our batting order as well as Irfan Pathan - our sole genuine all-rounder, never got a look in.
Ok, so some of them were in good form but for them to continue their good form, there needs to be some sort of reinforcement with small but regular knocks. Just because someone is in good knick, we can’t shut them up in a closet, take them out 10 years later, and expect them to play just as well.
Fielding
Is this a younger Indian Team??? Where are the sensational fielders? Where are the mind-blowing catches? If there are just one or two average fielders in our team, then why is the ball following them around the field? Some simple questions that came out of the India-Windies game on Friday. A great catch by Simmons, running back, dismissed Gambhir however, when it came to Ishant Sharma having to do the same to get rid of Bravo at the death, hmmm.
Isn’t Ishant young? Ok, so the argument is that he is a fast bowler. So does that mean that he is not expected to maintain the fielding standards? I believe that Dale Steyn is also a fast bowler and so is someone like Makhaya Ntini. I am picking South Africans because they are the best. Sure, we could compare with Mashrafe Mortaza as well, but then isn’t that what we have been doing till now?
If our fielders are good, then why are the likes of Ojha, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan placed in an area where they are likely to receive the ball a lot? South Africa place Gibbs on the fence, why can we put Yuvraj where the ball will be hit a lot?
Where are the Yorkers
This is probably a problem that seems to affect all teams, especially India. When players, in the beginning of their career, bowl excellent yorkers like Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan did, we put them into the MRF Pace Academy where bowlers like Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Lakshmipathy Balaji and others, are sent to elongate their bowling careers as well as extract their bowling brains.
Somehow, we just do not seem to bowl any yorkers at the end. Low full-tosses, an off-shoot of yorkers, are also quite effective in treating lower-order hitters. But, we are seem to be allergic to them in some way.
Experiments do Fail
I do agree that experiments can go right or wrong however I do not agree that the two measly warm up games are the place to do the experimentation, nor are the group games where the opponents are minnows.
Planning and experimentation should be over by the time the team hits the world cup. This means that when we go into a game, we should know exactly what to do against each opponent - not try and see what will work. As professionals at the highest level, the coach needs to be sure of the path to the finals and the strategy against each team.
We cannot try a new thing right before the main tournament simply because after the experimentation stage, when a final playing order or style is determined to be worthy of taking the team to the world cup, the team needs to stick to it and iron out all the shortcomings. Instead, we begin planning a week before the cup so it is no wonder that we will lose crunch games.
India might still Win
Sure, India might still go on to win the world cup by beating England, South Africa and whoever it is we face in the semis, but that might be more due to individual brilliance like a bowler taking a lot of wickets or a batsman hitting a lot of runs. It won’t be because we out-thought the opposing team or because our plans and tactics worked or because our field placement forced the batsman into playing a shot that we wanted him to.
T20 is all about scoring runs and taking wickets - Fast!!! There is no place for slow batsmen or run-blocking bowlers only. While run blocking bowlers are still an advantage, teams will always prefer someone who gives away 20 in 2 overs, but picks up 4 wickets.
Are we over-hyped?
Not to mention the hype that India is getting because of the media who are placing our team next to T20 gods. Sure, we are defending champions, but who did we beat before this? What are we the favourites for? Because our players were in good touch in the IPL? The conditions were different, the teams were different, the prize at stake was different. So I fail to understand how Indians are the favourite in this world cup.
So in saying all this, what I am trying to convey here is that the team might be making a huge blunder. We may land back on Earth after the Windies defeat but there is still a lot of misrepresentation of the Indian team by the media. We might not be as strong as we look, especially with Virender Sehwag out of the lineup. Maybe we needed a replacement for him in Sachin Tendulkar, but Sachin, I believe, would be happier sitting in the stands for now.
I sincerely hope I am wrong, as an ardent fan of Indian cricket, but I do know deep down, that I probably am not and that is what makes me nervous each time I sit to watch the men in blue trying to get down to business.
A postmortem after an early exit might be useless because we will never mend our ways. the only way is to write the script before someone else does.