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Sunil Gavaskar's comment that ``the ball had hit the inside part of the outside part of the pad'' after Robin Singh had appealed for an lbw, was not only one of the lines of the summer, it summed up, in a way, India's involvement in this World Cup. In one word, perplexing. In other words, India were there, but not quite.

At the end of the day, India's lurid past caught up with them, just when they had thought the skeleton was well and truly tucked away in the closet. The quite incredible non-performance against Zimbabwe, came to haunt India, when it looked like the Indians had very much found their feet in this competition. Sadly, it was too late.

Against Zimbabwe, India threw away a match, thanks to the combined efforts of their bowlers, who gave away more than fifty extras. Their batsmen, not to be outdone, failed to get the three runs required to win, with three wickets in hand. For decency's sake, we will ignore the fact that there were still six balls remaining in the match. After that debacle, India won one match against Kenya, the no-hopers in this competition. They won another against a Sri Lankan side, creaking at the joints and falling apart at the seams. The match against England was the only one which showed India in a flattering light. But, who knows what might have happened had Javed Akhtar not raised a friendly finger at that crucial moment in the English innings?

India did get to beat Pakistan to keep their hopes alive, fleetingly. But Pakistan was beaten similarly by Bangladesh as well. It only meant that after losing 47 times to the old enemy, India had won its 27th victory. Hardly the stuff that could take them anywhere in this competition. While the other teams in contention, were winning their matches, India managed to get just two points and two congratulatory messages from their President and Prime Minister, which did not seem to cut much ice in the Super Six. They needed Zimbabwe to broker the deal, but Zimbabwe was never given the time of the day by Pakistan. Exeunt, India. A sad end to a team, which I thought and hoped, had finally acquired the necessary self belief to go the distance.

Yesterday's match was essentially for pride. Here too, India faltered badly. New Zealand, which is of no comparison to India, man to man, played the waiting game perfectly, to try and notch up a place in the semis. They restricted India to just 251. Dion Nash bowled his best ball in this competition to get rid of Tendulkar. The best batsman in the world, thus had not scored a fifty in this World Cup against a test playing side. It was left to Jadeja and Azhar, certainly playing his last World Cup match, to get India to a reasonable total. But there ended all Indian pretensions.

Mathew Horne, who had struggled all through this competition, kept the Indians at bay and in the company of the only in-form batsman of the side, Roger Twose, almost took the game beyond India's reach. In the end rains threatened to deny India the victory with which they could have signed off England '99. An Indian summer it was not meant to be.

Messrs Chatterjee, Kapoor, Verma, Subramaniam, Ahmed, Sharma, Singh and Dixit across the length and breadth of India had foamed and frothed at the mouth, for the last two months goading and exhorting this team. There is silence, deafening and eerie, as all of India register this shock to the collective psyche. The typical mindset of fans and selectors would be to howl for blood and heads to roll. Azhar, more than most, would have to run the gauntlet. What will be forgotten in the general mayhem, would be the inescapable fact that the bowlers, and not their captain, had let India down. The sum of the whole was never in evidence.

The only redeeming feature of India's campaign has been the victory over Pakistan. But as they say, when you expect nothing, anything is everything; when you expect everything, anything is nothing. Life and the World Cup will continue to go on. Regretably, India will not be there to tell the tale.