The tale of Two Teams!
BCCI will send two different teams to compete at the highest level. Isn’t it a fantasy to see the current India team?
Indian men’s cricket team in the past couple of years has been such that it can field three separate teams in three different tournaments. This was never thought of in the past, although the men’s team has been doing well in the 21st century. However, fielding two teams isn’t a distant dream anymore. This is also vital to make up for all the cricket losses because of Covid-19 over the past year. The BCCI has already lost quite an amount of money once the IPL got suspended and then to let go of an international bilateral series because of the unavailability of the primary team would be silly. The idea of two separate teams will be a logistical nightmare but if there’s one cricket board that can pull it off then it’s the BCCI!
What’s the situation?
India is going to play New Zealand in the first-ever Test Championship final which is scheduled to take place from June 18, 2021, to June 22, 2021. Simultaneously, another Indian team is expected to be sent to Sri Lanka for the bilateral ODI series. This is when the Asia Cup was supposed to take place, but due to the rising Covid-19 case, it has been postponed once more. This is the time to put your incredible bench strength to the test. To make it to the top 11 or even 15 from a country of 1.4 billion people, as Justin Langer said after India won the Border Gavaskar trophy in 2021, you have to be special. It’s time to put the chosen ones’ abilities on display!
“ BCCI is regarded as the cricket world’s cash cow. But, given the talent pool, it has to be much more than that. And now is the time to put it all on display.”
By far, this is the best time to test the bench strength of the Indian team. We all know how the Indian team performed with an injury-depleted squad down under, but that’s a different story altogether. The team had a bunch of players who were playing together for a couple of months. They also had a leader who had stepped up to rescue India in the absence of Virat Kohli. Apart from this, the entire squad had the coaching staff who looked after and nurtured the current Indian team to bring out the best from them.
However, this time, with a second team going for a tournament would be quite different and far more challenging. The team picked will differ from the one traveling to England. This means the ODI team will have a new captain, a leader who hasn’t had enough time with the traveling bunch. It will also have a new set of coaching staff, and this could be one of the biggest challenges both for the team and the new coaching staff. Amidst all this, the best part is India has a wide pool of players to choose from who have performed exceedingly well in the few domestic tournaments. Not to forget the youngsters shining in the curtailed IPL 2021.
There has been an ongoing debate already on who should lead India in Sri Lanka as there is Shikhar Dhawan and Bhubaneswar Kumar in the mix of players to go to Sri Lanka. Both are very strong options as both have been leaders of their respective state and IPL teams. However, I feel it’s about time to give the captaincy to Hardik Pandya. He has been a leader in the Baroda and the Mumbai Indians side. In the absence of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer, Hardik seems to be the option to go with. Sourav Ganguly once said, “Captaincy is more off the field than on it.” Hardik has been with the side for a couple of years now, and it’s best to throw him with the challenge and see how he handles it because there will be leaders like Dhawan and Bhuvi in the team to help him out. This is also the best time to bring in Kuldeep and give him the confidence he so direly needs. The selectors and the captain should allow him to just express himself and do what he does best. If given the confidence and freedom, he can truly be back to be India’s match-winner again!
The predicted/desired team to tour Sri Lanka for the bilateral series would be:
Hardik Pandya ( C ), Bhubaneshwar Kumar (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Surya Kumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (WK), Sanju Samson (WK), Manish Pandey, Krunal Pandya, Shivam Dube, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Deepak Chahar, Jaidev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Rahul Chahar, Varun Chakravarthy
Test team touring to England for the World Championship final and the five matches series with England:
Virat Kohli ( C ), Ajinkya Rahane (VC), Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Rishabh Pant (WK), Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja & Washington Sundar, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Avesh Khan, Arzan Nagwaswalla, Prasidh Krishna
It’s a privilege!
To send two separate teams at the highest level has to be a privilege! How many other countries can even think of doing so and compete at the same time? Australia has done it once when one team played a T20I against Sri Lanka in 2017 in Australia and the other team played the test series against India in Pune. And we should give credit where it’s due. The way the Under 19 and A-Tours are being managed is impeccable. BCCI has done an incredible job in organizing tours for the A-team. By the time the players come to represent India, they have already played several first-class games which are where fearlessness and confidence come from. The reason Siraj could lead the pace attack in the fourth test match against Australia was that he had the experience of running in and bowling the hard yards against some of the top international sides. And not to forget, the IPL has played its part in nurturing talent not just for the Indian team but for other international teams as well. Rahul Dravid and his team also need to be credited for creating a robust system that keeps pushing players to perform when given an opportunity.
