Twenty20 vision: Team India needs a new mindset and specialisation

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: India’s chastening 10-wicket defeat to England in the T20 World Cup semi-final in Adelaide on Friday has made it clear that a reset is the need of the hour in the shortest format. Rohit Sharma & Co had spent the past 12 months making the right noises and attempting to exhibit a more aggressive approach with the bat, but they returned to old habits when the pressure was on in this World Cup. Challenging conditions may have played a part, but an average run rate of 6.02 for India in the powerplay overs just doesn’t cut it by ever-evolving T20 standards.

The next T20 World Cup is in June 2024 in the Caribbean and USA. While the ODI World Cup in India is a year away, it shouldn’t sidetrack the need to start preparing for the T20 World Cup straight away. Otherwise, they will be trying to catch up with the best T20 teams by the time the marquee event comes around once again. In order to ensure that the World Cups in the different white-ball formats are given equal emphasis, the question is worth asking: should India play separate teams in ODIs and T20Is? Some like Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah (fitness

Sanju Samson may be one of the players who needs to get a prolonged run of matches in the shortest format.

permitting) will be important members of the 50-over and T20 set-up, but a more flamboyant outlook with the rest of the squad may be the way to go.

Former India all-rounder Madan Lal thinks so. “There should be different players. T20 is a different format. You require the sort of players who do not have the fear to hit the ball, like Suryakumar Yadav,” said Lal, a member of the 1983 World Cupwinning squad. “We had the team to win (this time), but we took wrong, rigid decisions. Yehi team khelegi, yehi karega, yehi hoga (This is the team that will do it). That was wrong. You did not follow the T20 template. Look at the strike rate of India’s players and compare it to England’s, that’ll give you the entire picture of where it went wrong. We are hiding things, we cannot say anything about anybody because they’re all big stars.”

Former India pacer L Balaji said: “I am sure separate teams can be looked at given the pool of talent we have got. It’s happened recently with India playing simultaneous bilateral tours in different formats.”

More than the personnel, former India wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta feels a collective change in approach is imperative. If you need batters to attack from the outset, for instance, there needs to be an acceptance of the possibility that they won’t be very consistent.

“It’s a Catch-22 situation. We can’t want our top three to be playing fearlessly and then say they are out of touch if they don’t score runs. You can’t have both,” said Dasgupta. “If you want batters to take risks, failures would also be high. If you need consistency, you will get it from them. But you can’t say they also need to strike at 140 or 150. Our whole mindset needs to change. It is just not about the players. If there is fear that you will be dropped after three games, you are not going to play fearless cricket.”

England, who won the ODI World Cup in 2019 and have reached the final of the T20 World Cup in 2016 and now 2022, went about transforming their white-ball set-up after an early exit from the 2015 World Cup in Australia. Former selector Jatin Paranjpe said India have to take a leaf out of England’s book and pick players best suited to the T20 format.

“A digital native is a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and is so familiar with computers from an early age. I am talking about that because when you see England play the shortest format, they play it as it is meant to be. India have to pick the specialists like (Prithvi) Shaw, (Shubman) Gill or (Sanju) Samson,” Paranjpe said.