The bio-bubble and the injuries have had a positive effect on the India team as they have been able to explore their bench strength and have discovered many youngsters who have put their hands up when the Indian team needed them the most and have grabbed all the opportunities that came their way with both hands. The performance delivered by the young Indian rookies managed to impress the head coach Ravi Shastri.

The India tour of Australia, comprising three-match ODI and T20I series followed by four-match Border Gavaskar Trophy, saw youngsters like Shubhman Gill, T Natarajan, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, and Mohammed Siraj performing on the opportunity they got. Similarly, the biggest positive from the just-concluded four-match Test series against England was the emergence of Axar Patel as a prolific spin all-rounder for the team in the purest format of the game.

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Talking about the youngsters, Ravi Shastri said, “You’d have never imagined the number of players that would’ve played for India six months ago. This has been the most positive thing to come out of the recent bubble (in Australia), considering India had to travel with enlarged squads. Normally, we would travel with 17 or 18 cricketers. But because of the bubble, because of the quarantine laws (in Australia), we had to go with 25-30 or more cricketers.”

He further added, “So, as a result, you had to dig deep and pick your best. As luck would have it, we were left with no choice but to play all 30 of them. So, we got to find out who’s good and who’s not. And it’s something that has worked well,” Shastri said while speaking to Times of India.

Seeing the tremendous performance of the players, Shastri believes that in future India can play two different teams if they wish to rest their senior players considering the busy schedule of the cricket teams in the year 2021.

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Explaining the same, Ravi Shastri said, “These are things one would not imagine, but circumstances have made things happen and I’m glad the youngsters who got the opportunity have grabbed it with both hands. India might as well field two playing elevens out there.”