T20 World Cup: India captain Rohit Sharma slammed for blaming bowlers for England defeat

India's campaign at World Cup 2022 in Australia came to a disappointing end on Thursday (10) when they were hammered by England by 10 wickets in the second semi-final. The Men in Blue had set the Three Lions a target of 169 in 20 overs and both their openers Jos Buttler and Alex Hales hit unbeaten half-centuries to take England home with all wickets and four overs to spare.

England will face Pakistan in the title clash in Melbourne on Sunday (13).

India captain Rohit Sharma, who was devastated by the loss, came under heavy criticism from the fans for putting the blame on the bowlers for the defeat.

"It's pretty disappointing how we turned up today. I thought we still batted pretty well at the back end to get to that score, but we were not good enough with the ball. It was definitely not a wicket where a team can come and chase it down in 16 overs. With the ball we didn't turn up today," Sharma said, adding that the way India started with the ball was not ideal, indirectly taking a dig at the opening seamers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh, none of whom could finish their full quota of four overs in the match.

"When it comes to knockout stages, it's all about handling the pressure. Depends on the individual as well. You can't teach anyone to handle pressure. When these guys play the playoffs in the IPL and all that, those are high-pressure games, and they're able to handle it. The way we started with the ball was not ideal. We were a little nervy, but you have to give credit to the openers as well. They played really well.

"When Bhuvi bowled the first over it swung today, but not from the right areas. We wanted to keep it tight, not give room, because square of the wicket was an area we were aware of - that's where the runs came today. If we keep it tight and the batsman still score runs, we'll take it. But we didn't do that today," Sharma, who was leading India in an International cricket Council tournament as a full-fledged captain for the first time, said.

But the fans were not impressed by the captain's explanation, especially when Sharma and his opening partner KL Rahul had a far from impressive form in  the tournament. One even wanted him to be removed from the captaincy ahead the 50-over World Cup in India next year. It has only been around a year that Sharma took over the reins of India's white-ball captaincy from Virat Kohli.

However, a number of fans seem to think otherwise, especially considering Rohit and his opening partner KL Rahul's poor form with the bat.

Rahul failed to score in the big match and fell in the second over of the match for only five runs. Sharma played some shots that were not too well-timed and was dismissed in the ninth over for the personal score of 27 off 28 balls. It was a half-centuries from Kohli (50) and Hardik Pandya (63) that propelled India to 168 for 6 in 20 overs.