Team India’s head coach Rahul Dravid has given strong hints of building a young team keeping the next T20 World Cup in 2024 in mind. With senior players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma out of the T20I squad against Sri Lanka, Dravid opened up about team India’s plan for building a young team.
In the press-conference after India’s loss to Sri Lanka in the second T20I, Dravid said that much of the focus of the seniors will be on the ODI format, given the 50-overs World Cup is towards the end of this year at home.
“For us, obviously, from the last semi-final (in the T20 World Cup) that we played against England, only 3-4 boys are playing in the XI (against Sri Lanka). We are slightly in a different stage of looking at the next cycle of T20, so ours is a slightly younger team and for us to play against the quality of Sri Lanka is a fantastic experience. The good thing is that a lot of focus is on the ODI World Cup and World Test Championship, so the T20s give us the opportunity to try out these guys,” said Dravid.
The debate over exclusion of senior players from the T20I squad got ignited after India’s T20 World Cup exit from the semi-final. Though Dravid did not name anyone particularly but it was quite evident that India have decided to look ahead in T20Is and they are looking to build a new young team.
It is to be noted that from the Indian playing XI that played against Sri Lanka on Thursday, only Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Axar Patel, and Arshdeep Singh were the ones that were part of the team that suffered a 10-wicket loss to England in the World Cup semi-final last year. Pandya has taken the captain role now, though there hasn’t been any official announcement about his promotion but most likely he will lead the team in most of the T20Is.
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In such a case if we look at the T20I squad against Sri Lanka, it is full of youngsters. In the first T20I, Shivam Mavi and Shubman Gill got their maiden call up. Then, in second T20I, Rahul Tripathi got the chance to play for the national side and then Jitesh Sharma got his call as a replacement for Sanju Samson. All in all, India is approaching the team set-up from 2024 point of view.
However, it is to be noted that both Kohli and Rohit will be seen in the ODI series against Sri Lanka, starting from January 10. This justifies Dravid’s point wherein he mentioned that how team is concerned about senior players getting more playing time in 50-over format.
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