What was the reason behind India's Asia Cup disaster? Here's the answer

Team India suffered an early ouster at the just concluded Asia Cup 2022 which drew a lot of flak as the defending champions put up a lacklustre show despite the star-studded side.

India faced back-to-back defeats in the Super Four stage at the hands of Pakistan and Sri Lanka after winning both the matches in the Group stage. But they failed to carry the winning momentum forward and succumbed to comparatively weaker side and thus missed a chance to claim the eighth Asia Cup title.

Meanwhile, over 66 percent fans feel that poor team selection was one of the primary reasons behind India's recent Asia Cup debacle, revealed a survey by popular daily Malayala Manorama.

The paper had conducted an online poll on India's Dubai debacle where they failed to reach the final after losing to Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the Super 4 stage.

The media organisation set a questionnaire for the fans to analyse India's poor show.

Asked about the main reason for India's dismal show in the continental tournament, 66.91 percent felt it was "flawed team selection" while 26.37 percent blamed it on over-confidence.

A small percentage (3.79) attributed the disaster to excessive cricket while 2.93 percent cited over-age as the reason.

Another question was which aspect of batting didn't click and it was nearly a tie between those who attributed it to failure of batting all-rounders (33.09%) and ODI style batsmanship (31.14%).

The question on bowling saw 34.68 percent blaming it on death overs while flawed bowling changes was reasoned by 40.05 per cent.

Around 45.30 percent felt that Dinesh Karthik wasn't used properly during the tourney while near 19 percent (18.80) wanted better usage of Ravichandran Ashwin's services.

When it came to the player most missed, Jasprit Bumrah polled in maximum percentage (43.59), but close on heels was Kerala's Sanju Samson, with 42.49 percent.

According to the survey, "A majority of the respondents felt that had Bumrah and Sanju been part of the team, India's fortunes in the Asia Cup would have changed.

"Bumrah's absence was felt while bowling in the death overs. Sanju, with his aggressive brand of cricket, would have maintained the scoring rate in the middle overs," many fans noted.

"What the team needs is a proper T20 batsmen like Sanju," they stated.