The T20 World Cup 2022 has given Indian cricket a clear idea of where they lag in terms of quality in the shortest format of the game which continues to evolve every day. The weaknesses were apparent in the lead up to the tournament but thanks to some outstanding individual performances, the team was able to paper over the cracks.
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However, in order to succeed and by success winning a T20 world cup, the team will have to adapt to the changes and learn from how their opponents have made rapid progress in white-ball cricket. One of those changes, as talked about by the captain Rohit Sharma requires ditching the conservative style of play.
But as it turns out, the team also lacks in another department: batters who can bowl too, a fact pointed out by former India captain and head coach Anil Kumble.
There was a time when an Indian team was brimming with specialist batters who were decent bowlers as well including Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh among others.
However, in the current setup, there’s not a single batter who can be called upon to bowl a couple of overs. Rohit himself used to bowl during the early stage of his career.
“…what I see as something that certainly needs to be done is, how we keep talking about bowlers need to bat. But I think in Indian cricket, you need batters to bowl too for the balance of the team," Kumble told ESPNcricinfo.
“That’s exactly what England have. They had too many choices. They used Liam Livingstone. Moeen Ali has hardly bowled in this tournament. So those are the choices that you need," he added.
Kumble said the problem starts from the A team itself where the focus is on selecting players with specific roles.
“Unfortunately even in the India A team that gets picked, it’s mostly batters who don’t bowl. It’s important to create that brand of cricket and say that this is how the Indian team is going to do it and it should follow right through the system," he said.
“I think the more and more you play T20s, it’s going to be like this, where you just come and show your power. So that’s exactly how I think T20 is going to go forward," he added.
Another suggestion from the legendary spinner relates to setting up of a brand of cricket the team wants to play and then select players accordingly.
“One is of course having that brand of cricket and then choosing the players to do that but I think it’s also important that these players play their specific roles wherever they play," Kumble said.
He continued, “Because it’s not about just playing that role for India and then going back to your domestic cricket and franchise cricket and then changing the way you’re going to go about it. For example, Pant today (Thursday) batted for India at No. 6, he walked in in the 19th over. He never does that in domestic cricket.
“So you need some kind of role definition as well there and that’s something I think is very critical if you’re going to build a potent team where you need a back-up for those roles and not necessarily your six best players whatever role they can. It’s very difficult to do that in a World Cup."
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