Former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has praised the selection of the Indian team for the T20 World Cup 2024. He said that in some ways, the Men in Blue side has been picked keeping the final of the tournament in mind.
India qualified for the Super 8s of the tournament undefeated. They defeated the USA, Ireland, and Pakistan in Group A and their match against Canada was washed out due to rain. Now India has been placed with Australia, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh in the Super 8s group.
So far, the Indian side has used the same 11 players in all three matches. However, unlike the challenging pitches of New York, the pitches in the West Indies favored spin bowling. India has remained with their two spinners and three fast bowlers, with Hardik Pandya serving as the sixth bowling option.
There have been some questions about Kohli's form since he has only scored 5 runs in three matches.
Fleming encouraged the Indian squad to persist with the Rohit-Kohli opening combo. He also confessed that the club had to make a difficult decision by leaving out an explosive opener like Yashasvi Jaiswal from the starting XI.
“They had to make some hard calls while Jaiswal was a great player. That's, leaving out top-quality players is always difficult, and having a plan, and you stay to it when you've got great players sitting on the sidelines is always very difficult because it's tempting to keep looking where the grass is greener, but I like the job they've done, they've got through," Fleming told ESPNCricinfo.
Fleming felt that Team India had all their bases covered with a dominant spin attack as well as batters who can dominate spin.
"This is a team that in some ways is picked for the finals, in my view, it's a team that has spinners that can dominate, it has players that can dominate spin and we've seen spin in the West Indies play quite a big part, not so much in New York. So, I think they've got the job done and they've got quite smartly a view of mind. That is how we want to play the key games now going into hopefully, the semi-finals and final,” Fleming said.
"If you work backwards and say this is the team, I want for the final because these are the conditions I think, and then work backwards, then this looks some way what Rahul and the boys have done. They've picked a team that they think may be playing a turning track, this will give us our best chance at the top and has good balance, and we've seen that sort of in stops and starts and it's just been because of conditions, but I think they're in good shape," Fleming added.
India will face Afghanistan on June 20, Bangladesh on June 22, and Australia on June 24 in their Super 8s encounters.
(ESPNCricinfo inputs)
