India’s newly appointed full-time white-ball skipper Rohit Sharma says the time to experiment is over. Instead, his side will focus during the three-T20I series against West Indies on identifying players who can do the job at the T20 World Cup and give them ample opportunities to strengthen their cases.
Speaking to the press on the eve of the series opener in Kolkata to be played on February 16, Rohit said “experimentation is over-rated”, for him India need to be clear in their thinking and provide their immediate World Cup probables the opportunities they require against West Indies and then against Sri Lanka in the following home series.
“We are trying to find those holes that are there in the squad and try and fill that gap. So whatever it takes, we will try and do that.
“All these guys [the fringe players] are very young and haven’t played a lot of cricket.”
“We need to give them the assurity and the game time. Once we have that, then we can try out things. Till then, whatever little holes we have in our squad, we have to try and fill that,”
he was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
In the pace department, the rest provided to spearheads to Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami offers Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid the chance to assess their fringe options Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, uncapped Avesh Khan and see if the old warhorse Bhuvneshwar Kumar still has it in him.
On the spin front, the forced absence of injured R Ashwin and Washington Sundar has paved the way for the return of Kuldeep Yadav and reopened the doors for his potential reunion with Yuzvendra Chahal. India also have the option to try out promising unorthodox wristspinner Ravi Bishnoi with Australia’s big outfields in mind.
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The batting looks more settled but then the hamstring injury to KL Rahul means India will have a new opening combination up at the top. Among backup options, Ishan Kishan is likely to get the nod to bat with Rohit ahead of the uncapped Ruturaj Gaikwad.
Rohit is mindful of all the injury concerns, including that to Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya – the team’s premier spin and pace all-rounders, respectively – and said it’s important to keep the “backups ready”.
“The idea is to identify the players who are going to play the World Cup and give them the game time,”
“There are a lot of players who are injured and not with the team. Come the World Cup, I don’t know who’s going to be fit and who’s not going to be fit, but we’ve just got to get the back-ups ready.”
“We have a packed schedule and injuries will happen. It’s important we give players enough game time keeping everything in mind.”
he said.
India have home T20Is lined up versus West Indies, Sri Lanka and South Africa either side of the next edition of the IPL. They also travel to England, South Africa, West Indies and take part in the Asia Cup T20 before the World Cup in Australia.
Thus, a sense of urgency in Rohit’s words, as the management and the selectors look to firm up their squad and identify immediate backups to players without experimenting too much.
Rohit also made it clear that players shouldn’t expect to do for India’s T20I side the roles they perform for their respective IPL franchises since the IPL takes for only two months and India play the shortest format for the best part of the remaining year.
