Rhetoric, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is the art of using “speech or writing that is intended to influence people, but that is not completely honest or sincere”.

For example, It’s a country of 140 crore people, most of whom are obsessed with cricket, there is talent in every street.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is unearthing new talent by the dozen every season; India have the biggest and strongest bench strength in world cricket.

The standard at the IPL is so great that it helps prepare youngsters for the backbreaking grind in international cricket.

It’s all rhetoric. Has anything substantial come out of it?

An Indian cricket team may have won every IPL title in the last 16 years (I know, I know!) but THE Indian cricket team hasn’t won a major global trophy in a decade.

India last won the T20 World Cup in 2007. They last won the ODI World Cup in 2011. Their last ICC title – Champions Trophy – came in 2013. It all happened within a span of six years, with players who weren’t a product of the IPL. Yet, the rhetoric.

Now, add two World Test Championship (WTC) finals to the list of missed opportunities and you realise how, over the years, some people have successfully propagated a story of a great talent reserve. Of an imminent bright future. Of impending global domination. So much so that some even have started to believe it.

Any question or doubt could earn you a tag ranging from pessimist (if you are lucky) to anti-national (yes, even for cricket). There is a blind faith in India’s destiny, be it sport or anything.

That India are a good cricket playing nation is not contentious. That they have qualified for two back-to-back World Test Championship (WTC) finals, they must be doing something right. That they have produced some of the best cricketers, there must be a lot of talent.

But this must be said with at least an asterix (*) at the end of the sentence, if not a question mark (?). India failed to win the WTC final in two attempts but New Zealand (2021) and Australia (2023) have done it in their first try. It’s not the first time that a team has lost twice in back-to-back finals. The sameness of the loss, though, is a problem.

Between 2021 and 2023, except the margin of defeat, nothing much changed. Lack of preparation, confusing selection policy, recurring mistakes and inability to adapt to the conditions remained the theme in both the losses despite the change in leadership and coaching staff. Even the cast remained the same. The only ones who missed out were injured.

If there is a supposedly big and strong bench strength but it can’t replace a wicketkeeper-batter, a pacer or a batter with someone having similar abilities, there may not be enough depth in the talent pool after all.

Just in January 2021 they had beaten Australia in Australia with half of their squad injured. Where did all the talent vanish?

Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami. All these players have been a permanent feature in the playing eleven for over a decade now. In all these years, India haven’t produced anyone capable of bumping them out of the team. Not even when they endured a lean patch. Without taking any credit away from these established stars for keeping their standards high for so long, one needs to think: what sort of talent reserve fails to replace the incumbent in a decade?

Rohit was livid after the loss and said they would have liked “20-25 days to prepare” for the WTC final. But it’s not something that you learn after the loss. It’s an established fact.

If you notice, another round of rhetoric has been unleashed to divert attention from the real issues. Why play in June? Why does it have to be in England?

, you should have spoken about it earlier. You and your cricket board were busy in the IPL. You didn’t think the WTC final was important enough to find those “20-25 days to prepare”.