Why do India keep losing in the qualifiers of world cups?

The Indian cricket team has had mixed results in world cup qualifiers over the years. In the last few years specially after 2013, we have seen India team ruling the league matches and getting choked in qualifiers. There are several reasons that could contribute to their failure in these tournaments, including:

Lack of experience : World cup qualifiers often take place in countries with different playing conditions and pitches, which can be challenging for players who are not used to these conditions. We have seen many times that our batting gets collapsed in foreign conditions, which is one of the very big reasons for us not winning the world cup finals.

 It’s been very evident past 9-10 years that India somehow gets unlucky when it comes to World Cup qualifiers.

Poor team selection: Sometimes, the team selection may not be appropriate for the tournament or conditions. This can lead to a lack of balance in the team and affect their performance. In the recent two three world cups we have seen how bad our selectors’ decisions can be. I remember in the 2019 ODI World they selected Vijay Shankar instead of a no 1 middle order batsman ambati rayudu as a 3 dimensional player. Which made us lose the semi final of the world cup, where our batting collapsed.

Injuries and fitness issues: Injuries and fitness issues can impact the performance of individual players and the team as a whole, especially in long and demanding tournaments like the world cup qualifiers. Injuries have been a serious concern for the Indian pace bowlers specially, as we have seen many injuries in the previous tournaments that resulted in a losing note.

Tough competition: The world cup qualifiers feature some of the best cricket teams in the world, making it a highly competitive tournament. Even a small mistake or slip-up can lead to a team’s elimination. There is huge competition in qualifiers as they have been played between the best teams of the tournament. I remember one incident from the 2016 T20 world India playing semi finals against the West Indies. India bowled 2-3 no balls; those silly mistakes lead to the loss of team India.

Batting performance:- As we have seen in the big matches or in qualifiers our top order fails every time so all the pressure and the responsibilities goes to the middle order batsman but they too fail to deliver it in our favor.

Major reason for losing big matches is the top order getting collapsed every time. We need to see more character from our top order to get the World Cup in our favor.

It’s important to note that the Indian cricket board has the best of all things and provides the best coaches and the best fraternity. As a fan of the Indian cricket team, I feel disappointed. I know cricket is a  highly unpredictable sport, and even the best teams can fail to qualify for major tournaments. 

The Indian cricket team has had some successes and some failures in world cup qualifiers, I hope they will continue to work hard to improve their performance in the future and win the 2023 ODI World Cup as well as World test championship 2023.