Former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram says India are looking extremely unimpressive in the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy.

By Chetan Narula

After rain played spoilsport at Centurion on Monday night to push India on the brink of elimination from the Champions Trophy, former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram says India don’t look good enough to make the semifinals.

Speaking to Mobile ESPN from Johannesburg, Akram has questioned as to what the team is doing at the tournament. “Their mind seems to be elsewhere completely,” he said after Australia scored 234 for 4 in 42.3 overs, when the rains came down.

Dropping a bombshell, the fast bowling great said: “The Indian team has been looking listless and disinterested in the proceedings at South Africa. They don’t seem to be interested in playing and seem to be going through the motions in this tournament. I fail to understand the reason for that.”
 
Akram was critical of the Indian bowlers’ performances. In the two Champions Trophy matches so far, they have been all over the place.

“Against Pakistan, the seam bowlers bowled a bit too short with the spinners failing to curb the scoring rate or pick wickets. The story pretty much repeated itself in the game against Australia,” Akram said.

Talking about Harbhajan Singh in particular, who is the lead spinner and India’s main hope for wickets, Akram said the Turbanator has been “off-color”, bowling too many deliveries that can be cut away easily.

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Even ‘Captain Cool’ Mahendra Singh Dhoni has not escaped Akram’s attention.

Akram says: “Dhoni is looking disinterested as the skipper. He is not running to the bowlers and making suggestions or talking to them as often as he does. His plans might have worked earlier but now it is not working so he will have to work harder with the team as the team needs him to show confidence in them now.

It's all about numbers!

“Against Pakistan, he could have brought Harbhajan on earlier and he should have told him, don’t bowl short, get the batsmen to drive,” Akram opined, adding: “Harbhajan was expensive for he was bowling short throughout.”

Clearly something doesn’t add up somewhere and India now have just a mathematical chance of saving themselves from exit in the first round itself.

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