The Indian skipper and whole team are hitched to winning the in-progress test series against England with the visitors leading the series with 1-0 after a sensational win at Lord’s earlier this week. However, amid the ongoing series, Virat Kohli, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly along with other top BCCI officials had an informal chat over the roadmap for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
It is learnt that the T20 World Cup 2021 will be important for the Indian skipper as he has struggled brutally to overcome the Knockout obstacles in the ICC events. India went down to Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy final, lost to New Zealand in the 2019 ODI World Cup semi-final and also lost the all-important final of the ICC World Test Championship against New Zealand last month. All these events were held under the leadership of Virat Kohli and the experts believe that the upcoming showpiece event will be a litmus test of Virat Kohli’s captaincy.
The sources close to the BCCI informed that Virat Kohli, Sourav Ganguly, Jay Shah and Rajeev Shukla had a chat while India were playing the second test match at Lords. The discussions were drawn over the T20 World Cup planning and roadmaps.
“Yes, BCCI top bosses did meet Kohli but let’s say that it will not be fair to divulge the finer details of the discussion. But with very little time left for the T20 World Cup and India not having any games prior to the (IPL), discussion was more about the roadmap going into the event,” a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
Team India will play its opening game at T20 World Cup 2021 against on and off-field rivals Pakistan on 24th October at Dubai International Stadium.
The team combination for the World Cup will be an issue for the BCCI officials as well as the Indian cricket management. It will be safe to say that India failed to make a perfect playing xi combination in all the ICC events knockout matches due to which India faced defeat.
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India went with three specialist wicket-keepers in the ODI World Cup 2019 Semi-Finals. MS Dhoni, Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik were all selected to play the semi-final which backfired the team. Moreover, Virat opted to play both Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in the WTC final playing xi instead of four specialist pacers, which again was a misfire from the Indian captain.
Many experts believe that had India opted to play Mohammad Siraj or Umesh Yadav in place of a spinner, the team could have been on a more aggressive front. The conditions were in complete control of the pacers. The first day of the match was washed out by the rain and there were timely showers along with the cloud cover which was aiding the speedsters in the match.
Several Questions looming over the Indian selectors and management ahead of the T20 World Cup 2021:
The team selection will be a hiccup for the Indian cricket board and selectors. There are several options on the table to pick, however, the right and relevant needs to be chosen.
India has Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepak Chahar, Mohammad Siraj and Mohammad Shami in the pacers list. The management could only go with a few of them.
The issue of spinners will be another obstacle for India. Who among Rahul Chahar, Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy will pair with Ravindra Jadeja and Yuzvendra Chahal in the squad.
Will the selector go with Shreyas Iyer, who has shown good signs in the past, however, sustained an injury to halt the process, or Suryakumar Yadav, who has been sensational lately. Will they both make it to the squad and what about the playing XI?
There are several questions looming over the head and all these answers need to be addressed by Indian skipper Virat Kohli along with other responsible BCCI officials in order to get a much-anticipated success in the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
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