Former Indian batter Robin Uthappa said that the Indian team not playing in other leagues across the globe is hurting them in the T20 format overseas and in ICC tournaments. India faced a second consecutive defeat after losing the second T20I of the five-match series against the West Indies by two wickets in Guyana as well. Following a poor batting performance to chase a relatively straightforward run-chase of 150 in the opening T20, they repeated similar mistakes in the second game as well and lost both games.

Speaking to Jio Cinema after the game, Robin Uthappa said: “Well, yeah, I certainly think the exposure at the IPL and I think it is a trick that India misses out, especially in the ICC tournaments, because we don’t play any other leagues in any other part of the world. And I think yes, it does well to protect the IPL as an entity, but I think it costs us at the ICC level,” Uthappa said.

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“And I think those are the advantages that the accomplished players have against our Indian bowlers when they play them in bilateral or they play against them in ICC tournament,” he added. “They have had so much exposure against them in the nets and playing against them in the IPL for years 3,4,5,6 years. So you already know what the bowler does, you already know what the batter does. So you have a lot of information.”

However, coming off a scintillating century in the final of the recently concluded Major League Cricket (MLC) for the MI New York, Nicholas Pooran has maintained his stunning form in the T20I series. He scored an important 41 in the opening game, followed by his Player of the Match performance of 67 from only 40 balls as well.

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“I am just mind-blown by how when a guy gets you three wickets in an over essentially you don’t bring him back for another one and kind of close the game completely. The likes of Alzarri Joseph are not going to contend with the experience and class of a Yuzi Chahal. He knows how to bowl to these lower-order batsmen, he knows how to get them out. And Akeal Hosein is not gonna take him on, not at that point with three overs to go,” Robin Uthappa concluded. “He would have backed himself with two overs to go perhaps, not three overs to go. So, you knew there was an error in judgement there.”