India left to lament lapses in the Caribbean

'Electric Pooran plays his greatest hits to silence India'

‘India suffer embarrassing defeat to concede first T20I series loss in two years'

‘Indian batters flop…'

The headlines read as above on a day before the nation celebrates its 77th Independence Day, for the Indian cricket fan to fully absorb a dismal, abrupt, abject end to the Men in Blue's pretensions to greatness.

As expected, the knives are out, reams of analysis will be printed, experts will make a million suggestions and scapegoats will be discovered and punished over the coming weeks and months.

Should the surrender be total, and it is certainly more than a mere possibility despite Hardik Pandya's brave words at the post-match conference, the stewardship of the Indian cricket team would be on the line.

There are calls for a change in the batting personnel, young talent should be blooded, no doubt, and soon, but let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If not exactly, this is almost the same Indian batting line-up that served the team well against New Zealand earlier this year.

Coming back to Pandya, will he or can he continue as T20I skipper? The man has immense faith in his leadership abilities. Will the Indian selectors let him stay on? They are not renowned to be forgiving of wretched capitulation, never mind their less-than-little role in the current misadventure.

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the Irish wind. Can Team India negotiate a small corner there?

Champs to chumps, best to bust, first to worst - you just have to take your pick, and this aptly describes India's spiralling slide in the West Indies T20I series. How can a team that a little more than five months ago registered a historic T20I clean sweep against New Zealand fail so miserably as to lose the Twenty20 series without even putting up a fight on Sunday?

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Needless to say, everyone's become an expert now. From commentators and ex-cricketers to fans, everyone's coming up with a reason justifying this fall. These reasons include fatigue caused by excessive cricket, lack of practice, little to no acclimatization to the Caribbean conditions, excessive T20 exposure and finally, complacency.

All the years of IPL training did not help a top order to decide that scoring quickly while the fielders are up is a desirable way to play. India meandered to 60 for two in the powerplay, before Brandon King starred with an unbeaten 85-run knock and Romario Shepherd shone with a four-wicket haul in reply.

Sure, there can be good bowling up top, there can be swing to defuse and deliveries to respect. But there also has to be a mindset to attack by default, defend by necessity. It looks like Rahul Dravid and Pandya went at it the other way around.

After all the speculation over the last few days about whether India will clinch the series and what are their chances on the tour, it was a fitting end to it all. To any person who hasn't seen the series decider, it may seem like a close fight, but in reality, Pandya and Co. never looked like winners.

Within 24 hours of producing a batting master-class on a featherbed, the Indian batters, save Suryakumar Yadav's scratchy yet effective 61 off 45 balls, posted a sub-par score of 165 for nine after opting to bat on a used track that had become slower. Stressing on the need for ‘batting depth', Dravid strove hard to implement some damage control after his boys failed to accelerate in the death overs while the Maroon Army overhauled the target with two overs to spare.

Everyone who came in played slog over cricket and got out. No one except Suryakumar made any effort to stay at the crease. Just come in, blast it out and get out.

More than anything, I think the team wanted to prove a point - that these conditions were nothing, and they could just start a run rampage in that small ground in Lauderhill.

On the same track where the Caribbean bowlers put the Indian batters under a tight leash, the bowling attack looked horribly out of depth barring Kuldeep Yadav (0/18), who delivered yet another steady performance.

Pooran and King cleverly decided to play out Kuldeep's spell and attacked others with disdain. Yuzvendra Chahal (0/51 in 4 overs) had a forgettable day in office. When you do not have enough on the board, however, you have got to be excellent.

On a pitch where stroke-making wasn't an easy proposition, Surya had to curb his flair a bit but still had enough firepower in his arsenal to hit four fours and three sixes during his knock. In reply, India's nemesis Nicholas Pooran (47 not out off 35 balls) looked way more fluent but was overshadowed by opener King as they added 107 runs for the second wicket to put West Indies on course despite three weather related interruptions.

Nothing should be taken away from West Indies, however, as they kept their calm while bowling and batting, and won it with ease. Once they got 60 in the powerplay, there was no looking back as they maintained the tempo with most of the Indian bowlers pitching it short giving Pooran ample time to tonk them in the arc between the long-on and cow corner.

Between Pooran and King, they hit 10 sixes with half a dozen being smashed by the opener. However, it was the batting that became India's undoing as they never got the desired momentum during the middle as well as end overs. Even Surya was a bit subdued by his own lofty standards because the slowness didn't allow him to play his natural game.

It was a used track where the ball started gripping from the very first over bowled by left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein (2/24 in 4 overs), who made an impact against the Indian batters throughout the series. Between him and off-spinner Roston Chase (1/25 in 4 overs), they bowled eight overs for just 49 runs taking three wickets in the process.

Yashasvi Jaiswal (5) started with a reverse sweep but Hosein's delivery that stopped and turned with a tad extra bounce forced the batter to offer a simple return catch. Shubman Gill (9) was unlucky as he would have survived had he taken a review with TV replays showing that Hosein's arm ball was drifting down the leg-side.

Tilak Varma (27 off 18 balls) was at his fluent best taking 19 off the final powerplay over bowled by Alzarri Joseph. But he also fell prey to the slowness of the track offering Chase a return catch. His dismissal did become the turning point as far as India's downfall was concerned.

This was Surya's 15th T20I fifty but it was on the scratchier side despite some glorious strokes including the six off Joseph over long-off to complete his milestone. But it didn't help as Sanju Samson (13 off 9 deliveries) played a nothing shot without any footwork off Romario Shepherd (4/31 in 4 overs) to put more pressure on Surya.

Skipper Hardik Pandya (14 off 18 balls) couldn't get off the blocks and wasted too many balls before finally connecting one and then perishing off the very next ball as Shepherd used the slower ones to good effect.

Pandya's problems did have an effect as Surya couldn't provide the final flourish. Axar Patel (13) and Mukesh Kumar, who hit a final ball boundary, pushed India towards a par-score but that wasn't enough in the end.

Underperformance at this level will not last forever. There are really two options: either Indian cricket tires of falling short and turns inward to content itself with domestic riches, or it begins an era of winning so routinely that any loss will be an aberration. Surely India will take control on the field the same as off. It's just a surprise that it hasn't happened yet.

Victories have to be savoured, no doubt. But the pain of defeat has to be remembered and recalled and used to spur the team on and guard against complacency.

Success is a treadmill, you have to keep running to stay in the same spot. Hardik, do you hear me?