Former New Zealand player Ross Taylor on Friday opened up on the depth in India’s T20I squad for the Asia Cup, which allowed them to leave out a player of Shreyas Iyer’s skill and calibre, who was not selected for the mega tournament. Iyer, who had a great domestic season, and he also led his IPL franchise Punjab Kings, into the final, but he failed to find a place in the 15-member squad as well.
“I haven’t seen the side yet so can’t say. (But) when you can leave that type of quality out, you’ve got to be pretty comfortable with the depth of your squad,” Ross Taylor told PTI Videos on the sidelines of a CLT10 League event.
He also applauded the new Test captain, Shubman Gill, who led India to a 2-2 draw in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy recently.
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“It was a great series against England, whenever you go in the foreign conditions in Test cricket, especially these days, you have to take it very well. He has played in great spirits and led from the front. It has gone full circle started playing with the tennis ball and now finishing my career playing with the tennis ball, its a great concept of 10 overs,” Ross Taylor said. “The way these players go out and expresses themselves their, it is an opportunity to go out and showcase their talent and I am sure that as the tournament goes on we will get to know about these players even more.”
Meanwhile, former Sri Lanka pace bowler Farvez Maharoof backed Taylor’s comments, saying that India are spoilt for choice even though they didn’t add Shreyas Iyer and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
“India is spoilt for choices. (Ajit) Agarkar (chairman of selectors) is just too straight forward. These two guys haven’t done wrong. One (Jaiswal) takes on the bowlers from ball one, while the other is a leader of men. The system in India to produce players is fantastic,” Maharoof said.
“Going into the Asia Cup, India is the favourite, looking at the side that they have picked, they have got all the bases covered. Hardik Pandya, on his day, is a match winner. We saw that in the T20 World Cup in West Indies, we saw it in the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka (2023), whenever he performed well India have done well. For me in this side, Hardik Pandya can make the difference,” he added.
