Before you go onto read This Indian team is an embarrassment 2, please read the previous one here.
Prithvi Shaw could have been handy and Ashwin is not a T20 player
I have mentioned Prithvi Shaw. Though I am not a big fan of his batting in Test cricket, it will be worth to give him a fair run in the T20 format. He is naturally aggressive. It is something that India desperately needs at the moment. He will score far too quickly when compared to the tortoise Rahul and the sloth Rohit. The reason he finds himself out of the squad is because of his fitness. No doubt it is an issue but what about the captain himself?
One look at him and you can clearly see that he looks like a rotund watermelon. It is affecting his game seriously. He is late on shots and is unable to bat fluently. Looks like the much touted yo-yo test is not applicable to the captain and for this Rahul Dravid must be solely responsible. He seems to have allowed Rohit to carry on with his poor fitness.
Ashwin. Why was he brought back into the T20 squad? That too, in Australia. There was a reason for Kohli and Shastri not trusting him outside of India. This World Cup proved that they were spot on. 6 wickets in 6 games and an economy rate of more than 8. Ashwin did not justify his inclusion in the team.
Umran Malik
Umran Malik, the fastest current Indian bowler was jettisoned after a couple of games. He may not have control and probably is overreliant on bowling quick which makes him vulnerable because even a thin edge will run to the boundary. However, that does not mean that he must be discarded so quickly. Ofcourse, the door is not shut for him by any means but the bigger grounds of Australia and the pitches with bounce could have just been the catalyst he was looking for. Every team had a bowler who can hit 145KMPH and India was the only team that did not have a single bowler. It shows poor foresight on the part of the selectors as well as Rohit and Dravid.
New team must be picked
It is time some of the players are dropped from the team or told to move on. The next World T20 is in 2024 and the next 2 years must be used to develop a strong and aggressive unit. The likes of Rahul, Rohit, Karthik, Ashwin, Kumar, Shami, Chahal, Pant and even Kohli & Bumrah must be informed straightaway that they are not in the plan of the selectors for the 2024 World Cup. A brand new team with perhaps Hardik Pandya as the captain must be brought up. The team needs bowlers who can bat and batsmen who can bowl. The keeper must be solid enough. Sunil Gavaskar feels that there will a spate of retirements from T20.
“There will be some retirements, you never know. Players will be giving it a lot of thought. There are several players in their mid-30s who will be reconsidering their position in the Indian T20I team,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports.
Whether the players retire or otherwise, it is time to bid goodbye to their contribution and move on. Atleast in T20. None of the above have anything more to contribute
What is the point of Rahul Dravid?
Dravid’s CV over the last year and a few months does not inspire any confidence. Lost Test series and ODI series in South Africa. Lost the only Test against England and thereby drew a series that we must have won. Kicked out of the Asia Cup early and now kicked out of the World Cup. Yeah, under him, India won the Test series against New Zealand but in India. Anyway, India somehow managed to draw a Test that they were expected to win. Dravid must put himself under serious introspection.
Rohit’s and Dravid’s partnership was expected to transform the team who were on the cusp of greatness into a truly great side. Win in South Africa and England would have completed series wins in 3 SENA countries that is always hard. Unfortunately, the chance went abegging. Especially, the SA series where India were expected to just show up to win the series and yet, they somehow managed to lose to a side that even the South Africans may not have considered a decent one.
Dravid in his days was a conservative batsman. BCCI will have to think whether such a cricketer will be able to transform T20 cricket which needs ultra-aggressive thinking. If he doesn’t fit the bill, it is better to remove him from the post. It is perhaps time for India to look outside. The time is ripe for call for a foreign coach. Do not go to Laxman. He is not that different from Dravid.
Dravid’s comments after the loss
He refused to accept that the drubbing at the hands of England wasn’t a debacle but only a disappointment. World Cup semi-final. Your team wasn’t able to score runs and the opposition gets that in 16 overs at over 9 an over. They did not lose a single wicket. This was the first ever time a team won by 10 wickets in a World Cup semi. If this was not debacle, what is? Perhaps, Dravid would have felt that this was a debacle if England had managed to win under 10 overs. He continues
“The ball didn’t swing here probably as much as it has in other parts of Australia or in other conditions. Played a little bit into their hands, and class players like that, both Buttler and Hales, I thought their partnership was fantastic today.
“I think they just put the pressure on us, never let that go, and even when our spinners came on on a wicket that we thought we might be able to control the game, they really counterattacked our spinners, as well, and put our spinners under a lot of pressure.”
It was all nothing but just rambling.
Will playing other leagues help?
In the immediate aftermath of the defeat, there were suggestions that allowing Indian players to play in overseas league will help them in the future. Anil Kumble certainly believes that it will.
“I think exposure certainly helps. It certainly helps any cricketer. We have seen that with the kind of development that it has had on Indian cricket. For example, the IPL, where overseas players come in and the kind of changes we’ve had in Indian cricket has certainly helped. And likewise, if you identify the brand of cricket that we are looking at and then identify these key young players who you believe need those exposures, then why not? I think that’s important.”
I am not opposed to allowing Indian players in overseas leagues but that must be restricted to the next rung players. Every franchise will be keen to have a Kohli or Rohit or Pant in their squad but that will only increase the workload on them. They are very important to the Test side and as such we cannot afford to overload them. Some of the IPL performers like Tewatia or Mukesh or Kuldeep Sen can be allowed to participate. Already, the Indian players are playing non-stop throughout the year and franchise cricket around the world will only increase that.