India's Debacle and Ipl

There seems to be no end to the post-mortem analysis of India’s exit from World T-20. Some of them have been objective but most of them have been outrageously over the top. To begin with, I must state that I am highly skeptical of this analysis-paralysis surrounding T-20 performances. Going by the record in both int’l cricket & IPL so far and common-sense, it appears way too random to draw any definitive conclusion. India won the inaugural world T-20 when no one expected us to win and have been struggling to win a single match at the business end of the tournament, since then. Pakistan won the second edition but was almost knocked out of the tournament in super 8’s stage this year. And now, the 8th seed Australia (this alone is reason enough for us not to take T-20 results too seriously!) and of all teams England have made it to the finals! Has any team found the code to sustainable success in this format yet?
The story is not too different in IPL either. Rajasthan Royals won the first edition when they were least expected to. Next year, Deccan Chargers won the title after finishing last in the table, the previous year. This year, Mumbai looked good to take home the trophy, despite not being able to make it to the semi-finals in the last 2 years. Of course one can always point out CSK’s and Pakistan’s consistency in this format, but let’s not forget that a lot of things went in favour of Pakistan and CSK to make it to the SF of this year’s World T-20 and IPL respectively.
Does this mean, we can’t be critical of the team’s bad performance because of the inherent randomness prevalent in this format? Of course not. My only point is we shouldn’t go by the end results alone. For a problem with multiple causes, our media is guilty of navel gazing. They want to zero in on exactly those factors which resulted in our early exit. So conveniently they found the most easily bashable thing going around at the moment - it’s a free for all bashing - the IPL.
The media has...