Back home after his ill-fated World Cup trip to NZ, India under-19 coach Chandu Pandit talks about how the loss to Pak was a low point

Coach Pandit explains India's failure in the Under-19 World Cup

Back home after his ill-fated World Cup trip to NZ, India under-19 coach Chandu Pandit talks about how the loss to Pak was a low point

Losing at cricket can be a coach's worst nightmare. Ask Chandrakant Pandit. Yesterday, the India under-19 coach was at the MIG Cricket Club in Bandra to watch a Mumbai under-14 game, but admitted that mentally, he was still at the under-19 World Cup in New Zealand.

His mind kept going back to the games which India u-19 lost to against England and Pakistan, defeats that sent his team packing out of the event last week. "I am physically here, but the action in this match is subconsciously connecting me to New Zealand," Pandit told MiD DAY.

Being defending champions, the hype around the Indian team was huge and winning the World Cup was being taken for granted. Hence, the early exit became a bitter pill to swallow.

Painful
"It's not easy to get over such defeats. It's been very painful. I am feeling as low as I did when we lost the 1987 World Cup semi-final to England in Mumbai; the 1986 Tied Test against Australia which we should have won and the last-ball loss to Pakistan in Sharjah, 1986 when Javed Miandad hit Chetan Sharma for a six. The dressing room atmosphere after the loss to Pakistan in the quarter-final last week made me feel as if I was at a funeral. I felt the same way after the Sharjah defeat.

"In the evening, sitting in my hotel room, I felt like I had lost everything," said Pandit, his voice quivering as his eyes welled up.

"I reached home at 1 am on the day of the final, (last Saturday). At 3 am, I woke up to watch the Australia vs Pakistan final. One part of me was telling me not to watch it. But I could not help turning on the television set.

It was hard to accept that my team was not playing the final. We had played against the same Pakistan team and instead of them, it could have easily been us playing that game. While watching the final, I was telling myself, 'we could have bowled this way to this Pakistan batsman and we would have had this fielder positioned here,'u00a0" said Pandit.

The way ahead
While in NZ, Pandit exchangedu00a0 notes with the coaching staff of Australia, England and South Africa. "They started preparing for the event 16 to 20 months in advance. We need to do the same. It's not just about winning, but more importantly, it is the right way to groom youngsters. It's not possible to get the boys together for a continuous period, but we can have regular camps," he said.

Pandit's five reasons for u-19 World Cup debacle

1 Being defending champions, the expectations were huge. The players were too focused on winning the Cup instead of the process it takes to reach there.

2 Only the top three batsmen scored. The rest did not get a hit in the main tournament and in crucial moments during the big games against England and Pakistan, the top order collapsed. The onus suddenly fell on the rest of the batsmen and they looked out of sorts.

3 Overall, the bowlers were right on the money but they could not adhere to the plan during crucial moments like the batting powerplay against England and the death overs against Pakistan.

4 Fielding was generally good but they fumbled under pressure. In a low-scoring game against Pakistan, we dropped two catches. Against England too, we missed two run-out chances and dropped one catch of a key batsman.u00a0

5 After two easy victories over Afghanistan and Hong Kong, the boys could not maintain their focus in the remainder of the tournament.

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