Middle-order facing heat, Kohli says need to bring in ‘right people with right mindset’
NEW DELHI: Indian cricket is set to begin the transition process of its Test team going into the next cycle of the World Test Championship (WTC). After the runners-up finish in the inaugural WTC, the team management has started thinking about rebuilding the team. The focus is now on phasing out senior pacers and creating a pool of batsmen who will be ready to take the team forward.
Every country usually plans a team keeping the ODI and T20 World Cups in mind. The Indian team has now got into a mode where it wants to identify players who could be there at the end of the upcoming two-year WTC cycle and take the team beyond it.
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![New Zealand beat India in World Test Championship final]( "New Zealand beat India in World Test Championship final")
NEW DELHI: Indian cricket is set to begin the transition process of its Test team going into the next cycle of the World Test Championship (WTC). After the runners-up finish in the inaugural WTC, the team management has started thinking about rebuilding the team. The focus is now on phasing out senior pacers and creating a pool of batsmen who will be ready to take the team forward.
Every country usually plans a team keeping the ODI and T20 World Cups in mind. The Indian team has now got into a mode where it wants to identify players who could be there at the end of the upcoming two-year WTC cycle and take the team beyond it.
India skipper Virat Kohli talked about this moments after losing the WTC final on Wednesday. “We will continue to reassess and have conversations on what are the things required to strengthen our side. We need to understand what dynamics work for the team and bring in the right people with the right mindset,” he stated in Southampton. “Let’s not fall prey to a certain pattern,” he warned.
Kohli would know how hard it is to go through the throes of transition. He was at the forefront of it when India’s famed Test middle-order left the scene in 2012. Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane have since been the mainstay. “When you have been a top side for a few years in a row, you certainly don’t want to drop your standards. We need to keep up with the demands of the game. We will certainly take those decisions and have those conversations in the near future. It’s not something for which we will wait for a year or so,” Kohli asserted.
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Team India should be praised for reaching the final of the first WTC championship. Yet, there’s plenty of scope for improvement. Announcing a team in advance is a sign of confidence, but the think-tank should be flexible enough to make adjustments as per changes in conditions. It’s also clear that this team often underperforms in key knock-out games in major ICC tournaments. This worrying flaw must be ironed out.
TOI understands that Pujara could be feeling the heat followed by Rahane. Pujara hasn’t scored a Test hundred in 18 matches over the last three years and Rahane has blown hot and cold for too long. The team management is willing to give more responsibilities to younger players and groom them in leadership roles Pujara’s low strike-rate irrespective of conditions has always been a matter of contention. The team had gone in with a plan to always look to score runs and Pujara’s inability to get off the mark for 35 balls in the first innings only highlighted his problem. “When one talks about scoring runs, no one is talking about going after the bowling. The team expects one to at least rotate the strike every 7-8 balls,” sources close to the team management told TOI.
Kohli couldn’t harp enough on the need to keep scoring runs in conditions as challenging as they were in Southampton. Not letting the bowlers settle into a line and length was the plan against New Zealand.
Kohli also pointed at the depth in the white-ball format. “If you look at our white-ball team, it has great depth and the guys are confident. Same thing has to be done with Test team as well,” he remarked.
The upcoming five-Test series against England will help in deciding the future course of action.
Needed: A pool of Test batsmen
The challenge now lies in creating a pool of batsmen, especially in Test cricket. It’s probably time that the selection committee dug deep and took tough calls. The previous selection committee had taken such calls in white-ball cricket in 2017 when they phased out Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina along with R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Jadeja’s all-round skills won him a place back.
Former selector Devang Gandhi says that most batsmen in the reserve pool, barring Hanuma Vihari, were openers. “The likes of Prithvi, Mayank, Padikkal and Easwaran are all openers. Even KL Rahul is one. The team management has to be flexible here. Shubman Gill has performed exceedingly well for India ‘A’ in the middle-order. He played most of his India ‘A’ matches at No. 5. They could try him there,” Gandhi told TOI.
New Zealand beat India in World Test Championship final
Former India wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta, who has been closely tracking Indian domestic cricket as a broadcaster, reckons that building a pool like in the white-ball formats is difficult because of the low number of matches. “I do feel some tough calls need to be taken keeping the future of Indian cricket in mind. But one should remember India play a lot of white-ball cricket in a year and that’s why you can try out a lot of players there. But you only play around 10 Tests a year. So, you generally tend to stick with the same players,” Dasgupta said.
Dasgupta echoed Gandhi’s views in making do with the resources available. “The Indian team management could reshuffle the batting order. Consider Shubman and KL Rahul as middle-order batsmen. Rahul’s game against new ball seems to have suffered but he could be a handful at No. 5 and Shubman at No. 3 if he doesn’t click in the next two Tests,” he reckoned.
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