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Indian board rules out England tour post-mortem

MUMBAI - The new Indian cricket board (BCCI) president N. Srinivasan on Monday ruled out any formal inquiry into the team’s abysmal performance on their tour of England.

India arrived in England as the number one test team in the world but meekly surrendered their top ranking after a 4-0 whitewash.

The 50-overs world champions did no better in the shorter versions and failed to win a single international match during the tour.

The board and the national selectors were heavily criticised by pundits and fans for the performance of the team but Srinivasan ruled out any review on the lines of what Australia did after their 3-1 Ashes loss to England in the beginning of the year.

“I don’t like to lose,” Srinivasan told reporters after the board’s annual general meeting at its headquarters in Mumbai.

“And the BCCI can’t wait to get back to the top spot. But we have not formed any committee to look into it.

“Yes, we did not do as well as expected. (But) it happens. We have belief in this team and we believe that this team will bounce back very well.”

India were plagued by injuries during the tour and critics have blamed a punishing schedule for the team’s plight. This year Indian players were involved in series against South Africa, West Indies, the World Cup and the Indian Premier League before being humiliated during the two month tour of England.

The jam-packed itinerary took its toll on the players as Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh — named Man of the Tournament at the World Cup — Virender Sehwag, paceman Zaheer Khan and spinner Harbhajan Singh were just some of the players who were forced to fly back home early.

While the BCCI president blamed injuries as one of the main reasons for the debacle, he refused to accept that the Indian team was playing too much cricket.

“We did not have our best team together from the beginning,” he said. “We have taken stock of the number of days of cricket played by the other countries. There is not much difference.”

“In any case it’s not the same team for all three versions. Except for a few players, most don’t play all three formats of the game.

“The players who do play all three formats were not the ones who got injured.”