Ex-India captain and former chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar slammed national head coach Rahul Dravid and current skipper Rohit Sharma, blaming the duo for the team's debacle in the recently concluded Asia Cup.
Heading into the prestigious continental competition, the Men in Blue were the overwhelming favorites to defend the title but were knocked out in the Super 4 stage of the tournament.
Though the Indians began the event in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on a strong note, comfortably defeating Pakistan and Hong Kong in their first two matches, they lost the plot in the next two matches. Rohit Sharma and company suffered back-to-back losses in close games against Babar Azam and his boys and Sri Lanka, leading to their shock exit from the multi-nation competition.
While most cricket pundits didn't say much about India's poor show in the Asia Cup even after India continued to experiment with both their batting and bowling line-up, Dilip Vengsarkar wasn't impressed with their approach during the event.
That's why he was left fuming at both Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid, the two men responsible for India's game plan in and outside the field.
“The team is going ahead with their experiments. They picked Dinesh Karthik, but they haven't played him, and then they played Ravichandran Ashwin for the first time against Sri Lanka. Obviously, the team management wants to give all the players a chance as they are trying to find their best XI for next month's World Cup. But then this event is also very important. The Asia Cup is a very big tournament. Winning matches in a tournament like this is very important for the morale of the team. Also, I think it's important to have the winning combination. As I said, the Asia Cup is a very big event. You can experiment maybe in a bilateral series, but the Asia Cups and the World Cup, these are major tournaments. In these tournaments, you need to win, that's very important,” Dilip Vengsarkar told Khaleej Times in an interview.
“In this format, it's very difficult to pinpoint what has gone wrong because it's too short a format. If you have two-three bad overs or two-three good overs, it can change the complexion of the game. So it's very difficult to say what has gone wrong. You always hope that everybody clicks at the same time, but it's not possible. You can only hope that the batsmen put up a good total for the bowlers, so they can bowl well and defend. Basically, the powerplay over are very important. You have to be more assertive in the power-play overs. Of course, India had some injury issues (Jasprit Bumrah, Harshal Patel, Ravindra Jadeja) as well,” he added.
“The Indian team have tremendous potential. They have a lot of match-winners. I am happy to see Suryakumar Yadav playing some big innings. Virat Kohli is getting into his form. Rohit Sharma played a fantastic knock in the last match. Kohli playing well in three of the four innings is definitely a big positive. He is one of our match-winners. He is a world-class player. For him to get into form is very important going into the World Cup. He will be one of India's key players in Australia. Then the young Arshdeep Singh bowled very well. It's good to see young cricketers coming up and performing at this level. Arshdeep is a very talented player. He is short on experience, but having said that, he bowled brilliantly in the death overs. It's a good sign because he is playing these high-pressure games. He has really come of age in that sense,” he concluded.
On Tuesday, the BCCI announced the 15-men Indian squad for next month's T20 World Cup in Australia with both Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel returning to the Rohit Sharma-led side. On the other hand, Rishabh Pant was named as the second wicketkeeper alongside Dinesh Karthik despite his below-par display and severe criticism of his strike rate in the Asia Cup.
India squad for ICC T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh.
The Indians will be back in action next week when they will take on the Australians in a three-match T20I series at home. The first game of the series will be played at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali on Tuesday.
Captain Rohit Sharma and coach Rahul Dravid will look to fine-tune their strategy for the T20 World Cup in Australia with stellar performances against the Kangaroos who are the reigning world champions in the shortest format of the sport.
The last two matches against Australia will take place in Nagpur and Hyderabad respectively.
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