Sunil Gavaskar wants India to play their best players against Australia and South Africa.
India is unlikely to get into the final of the ongoing Asia Cup 2022 in the UAE, and legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar said that it was the result of Team India’s experiments and workload management theory after they suffered a 6-wicket defeat against Sri Lanka in a Super 4 match on Tuesday (September 6).
Notably, Team India suffered two consecutive defeats in the Super Four stage of the ongoing Asia Cup 2022 against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, putting themselves in a situation where they are likely to make an early exit from the event.
After India vs. Sri Lanka match, Gavaskar stressed that India must stop their experiments, end the talk about workload management, and pick their squad that is going to Australia for the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 for the upcoming home T20I series.
The former Indian captain said India must play their best XI against Australia and South Africa in the upcoming three-match T20I series to get into the rhythm; otherwise, things would be tough for them.
Sunil Gavaskar told India Today: “It has not come about (sync) because you haven’t had the same team playing. You get into a sync when the whole team is playing. You try to experiment, there is nothing wrong with that. There are always 3 or 4 places up for grabs in a team and in the process of trying to identify those players, you try to go in with different teams. What that did was obviously, you know, when other players come back into the team, the sync will take a longer time.”
India has been majorly shuffling players for the one-after-another series to manage key players’ workloads, but the legendary batter is against that idea, especially heading into the T20 World Cup 2022.
Gavaskar further explained, “I would have thought that prior to the Asia Cup, the tour of Zimbabwe was the one where the majority of the players who were going to play the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup should have been selected. Now, suddenly, you have got 4-5 guys coming in, guys who had done well in Zimbabwe are not in the XI, not even in the squad. So the sync will take time to come.
Yes, there is a touch of worry. I’m not overly worried, because we have got a few matches coming up at home before the T20 World Cup. There, I hope, no experiments will take place. You’ll pick the squad that is going to go to Australia and play. Stop talking about workload and all that, when you are playing for India, there’s no workload. You just got to get your best team out in the park for the coming matches in India.”
He signed off by saying, “Now with the exit from the Asia Cup, you have got 2-3 days of extra rest. You take that rest and start getting together in Mohali for the Australia series. The same team plus one or two standbys for the series against South Africa and Australia. That will then give them a lot more time out in the middle. We always keep talking about time in the middle, we talk about overs under the belt, we haven’t had that.”
(With India Today Inputs)