Alongside India’s stunning batting depth, they have a strong bowling unit now, with the all-rounders chipping in wickets as well. While Hardik Pandya used be their main all-rounder a few years ago too, they have many now and it always helps the team. Recently, Nitish Reddy shone with both the bat and the ball. Moreover, Riyan Parag and Abhishek Sharma also came in handy with the ball.
“The way the game is going, it is very rare that all five bowlers or even six bowlers are going to go well on the day. So it is nice to have options,” said India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate. “Ideally you want them to bowl a little bit more but yeah, someone like Hardik not bowling in the last game is just testament to the depth in the bowling team. Balance is so important. You don’t want to get into a position where you have too many [frontline] bowlers, and it’s the same with batters. [Having so many all-round options] does give us a chance to pick a specialist bowler when one is available, when we think the difference is big enough to do that. But it gives the captain so many options.”
Ryan also said that “carefully selected” players who can fulfill “multiple roles” has given India to work with a huge depth in the series and it will help in good selection headaches come the World Cups and Champions Trophy as well.
“It is good to see the depth we have had so far. These guys can fill multiple roles which are so important for balance depending on where we play. You look at someone like Riyan. He hasn’t done it in the series but we see him as someone who can bat a four and five as well as being a finisher. So it is trying to fit as many of those pieces together as we can in these bilateral series. We are still keeping winning as the priority in each series. The players are very carefully selected. Ideally, yes, you want to build a strong core of players but this is an overlapping series and there’s the Champions Trophy coming up, there’s the Asia Cup coming up and the World Cup coming up. We want to know where everyone stands in Indian cricket,” he stated.
ALSO READ: “Shubman’s captaincy is very good” – Ravi Bishnoi on Shubman Gill
“What’s been important in this series is understanding some of the guys that have come into the team for the first time. Two debuts [Mayank Yadav and Nitish Reddy] in the first T20I, which is really important. And just having the guys around – Jitesh and the guys that haven’t played, Tilak and Harshit – and seeing how they operate and what strings we need to pull to get the best out of them because they are going to be important certainly in the next 18-month period,” Ryan ten Doeschate again shared.
However, Team India’s depth in this series extends only, with batters like Jitesh Sharma and Tilak Varma yet to feature in the series as well, but Sanju Samson, the makeshift opener for India, is going to get another chance. Harshit Rana is also in line for a debut as well.
“Obviously Tilak came into the squad a bit later, Jitesh is there as well, but we want to give Sanju another chance, so there are options,” Ryan said. “We are trying to expose as many guys as we can to international experience with what we have got coming up. So someone like Harshit Rana we are keen to give a game to. And certainly the plan originally was to win the series and then try a few new faces for the last game.”
He also shared why they are keen to give Sanju Samson another chance and how his innings in Gwalior helped the team’s philosophy of aggressive batting as well.
ALSO READ: Hardik Pandya shares happiness after winning back the love of fans
“If you look back at the first two games, someone like Sanju got a quick start in the first game in Gwalior, it would have been easy for him to knock it around and just get a 50-60 not out. But you can see he is trying to push the boundary. He knows the state of the game and the messaging has been pretty consistent with that.,” Ryan said. “We are trying to push the limits of what we can do as a team. We have obviously got the quality to do it. And then it is about giving the players the belief to do it in a safe space to know that if it is not going to go right, it is also okay.”
“We want guys to expand their own games. We want to move cricket forward like it is going with the times. And we want to be prepared for the big crunch moments that are coming up in the next 18 months. It is just giving them the freedom to know that they can go out there and do it without backing. And they are certainly good enough to do it. So it is just a matter of looking to score and looking to hit every single ball in the 120 balls,” Ryan ten Doeschate concluded.
