Dismal India need to raise their standard as World Cup looms

New Delhi: India were ousted from the ODI tri-series by England who scripted a three-wicket victory against MS Dhoni's side in Perth on Friday. England booked their place in the final and will play giants Australia. For India their sorry state of affairs outside the sub-continent continued as the side failed to register a single victory in the tri-series.

With the World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand from 14th February, India have plenty of questions to answer. The entire unit has been short of a decent performance in the entire ODI series and it signals a sign of warning when the side face rivals Pakistan in their World Cup opener.

Indians experimented with their team throughout the series and it still looks vulnerable as to what will be the combination of the team going to play at the World Cup. Indian batsmen on Friday threw their wickets as they managed to put on a paltry score of just 200 runs and then after gaining an initiative with the ball, they allowed the game to slip away.

Stuart Binny and Ajinkya Rahane impressed on the day, as the likes of Ravindra Jadeja and Shikhar Dhawan failed to justify their places in the team. At this moment the team looks vulnerable with an over dependance on Virat Kohli who too has had a poor series.

India's opening combination with the bat is in a need of vitality and strength. Shikhar Dhawan has failed upfront repeatedly. Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma look ideal choices but the latter is injured and hopefully will get fit before the event starts.

The middle order is in short of runs with Ambati Rayudu and Suresh Raina contributing very little with the bat. MS |Dhoni himself has been unable to take responsibility with the bat and it is a major worry.

India's decision to start the bowling with Stuart Binny shows Dhoni's lack of trust in his fast bowlers. Binny though has been good so far and serves Dhoni as an assured berth in the team.

The bowling department looks weak as well. Jadeja who gave over six runs an over on Friday against England, has got the nod over Ravichandran Ashwin but has not managed to do his job with both bat and ball. Ishant Sharma is injured and Bhuvneshwar Kumar is out of form. Meanwhile, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav is inconsistent and leak plenty of runs. Axar Patel looks inexperienced.

India have two weeks to address issues in all fronts. With Pakistan playing against them on 15th February, Indian fans will hope for nothing else but a win and may be if the team does manage to do that, then it could give them confidence to go ahead.

For now they are poor, short of ideas and look like a bunch of players who are mentally drained to give a fight down under.