Virat Kohli’s dreams of winning an ICC trophy may elude him this time as well. And it’s New Zealand again who have done the damage.

Having earlier robbed the India captain of the chance twice (the 50 over World Cup in 2019 and the World Test Championship final earlier this year), Kane Williamson’s men have nearly shattered India’s hopes in this T20 World Cup too.

An eight-wicket loss to New Zealand on Sunday means India’s chances of making the semi-finals is no more in their hands. They have to rely on Afghanistan to beat New Zealand and then hope to overcome Afghanistan by a huge margin to improve their net run rate.

A target of 111 was never going to be enough and some judicious batting by New Zealand opener Daryl Mitchell (49 off 35 balls) and Williamson (33 not out off 31 balls) made it look easy. None of the Indian bowlers, the spinners included, threatened to stop New Zealand in their path after Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi took it away from India’s grasp in the first 12 overs.

“Bizarre” is how Kohli described the turn of events but it was a simple case of surrender and lack of will to fight. The players looked jaded, showing no intention to wriggle themselves out of a tight situation. For most of the evening, the Indians were moving around with drooping shoulders while New Zealand showed the positive intent to make things happen. There were no lessons learnt from the Pakistan debacle.

All the talk of fearless batting went up in thin air as the top order once again lost way early in the innings. Only 35 runs came off the Powerplay overs and 48 off the first 10. A total of three wickets had been lost by then.

The fear of losing more wickets in the middle overs and finding themselves in a worse situation forced some of the batters to take a more conservative approach.

India’s capitulation in many ways reminded one about their loss to the same opponents in the last edition of this tournament. The hosts had been bundled out for 79 in their chase of 127 in Nagpur, five years ago.

There too Santner and Sodhi were the tormentors, taking four and three wickets, respectively. Santner and Sodhi are the type of spinners the Indians dislike, not much air while tying the batters down to singles and twos.

Santner (4-0-15-0) has a high release point, is accurate, brings the ball back into the batsmen and gives very little chance to go over the top. Leg spinner Sodhi (4-0-17-2) acted as the perfect foil, picking up wickets with long hops.

He had Rohit heaving into the deep and then Kohli attempting a slog sweep to one dipping outside off, this time Boult completing the catch at long on.

The Indian batters put in a pathetic exhibition, none showing the courage to launch an offensive against the spin duo. They were content with playing from their crease, allowing Sodhi and Santner to pile on the pressure.

It looked as if the Indians had surrendered the psychological advantage once Williamson won the toss and expectedly put India in to take full advantage of the dew factor. Suryakumar Yadav’s back spasms meant he had to miss out and replacement Ishan Kishan was asked to open with KL Rahul.

The openers started so tentatively that India found it tough to regain the momentum during the innings. It is debateable whether opening with Rohit Sharma and Rahul would have been advantageous.

There was hardly much swing on offer and Trent Boult never seemed to replicate Shaheen Shah Afridi. Yet the Indians panicked after Kishan departed in the third over.

Boult ended with three wickets from his consistent disciplined length though he was denied Rohit’s wicket when Adam Milne dropped a sitter at long leg. The vice-captain failed to take advantage, despite Milne conceding 15 in his first over.

That over proved to be a blip as the Indians struggled against his extra pace in the remainder of the innings. His next three overs yielded only 15 before he broke through Rishabh Pant’s defence. The only resistance came lower down the order when Ravindra Jadeja hammered an unbeaten 26 off 19 balls.

That proved too little as Jadeja had very few overs in hand. Even the presence of a star “finisher” in Hardik Pandya failed to provide impetus to the innings.