Former wicket-keeper Deep Dasgupta showed confidence in Team India’s T20I bench strength and depth despite the recent successive series losses to Ireland and England. The Men in Blue made amends by completing a comprehensive clean sweep against Zimbabwe, but doubts persist in the early days of Shreyas Iyer’s reign as captain.
Team India have often flexed their prowess in the past, with even the second-string squad racking up wins in the shortest format. However, in this instance, the visitors struggled without some star names like Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, failing to find the right balance and potency to endure a seven-match winless run.
The new faces in the setup took a while to settle in, while several players failed to adapt to the conditions. Despite the success in Zimbabwe, the poor displays in Ireland and England will be reviewed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in the coming days.
Despite the series losses, Deep Dasgupta believes that Team India has enough talent to forge two separate T20I sides, with the only challenge being finding the right combination.
“In the next one and a half years, the most important thing in the format will be to figure out what the combination is, and roughly speaking, what the best 15 is? At this time, if I say this, people might laugh at me, but factually we can make two teams, and chances will be that both teams will be equally good. So, that brings up a challenge, because we have 30 players, but to reduce it down to 15 players, that will be a challenge. We do have the players,” Deep Dasgupta said on his YouTube channel.
Despite the focus largely on the longer formats at the minute, there are more than enough T20Is in the schedule for the coming months for Team India to work on their combination. As things stand, Shreyas Iyer and co. will play T20Is against Bangladesh, Afghanistan, West Indies, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, along with the Asian Games 2026 before the start of the next year.
“We don’t know what the best playing XI is” – Deep Dasgupta outlines the main concern with the T20I setup after Ireland and England series losses
Deep Dasgupta opined that Team India’s T20I setup can only succeed if they find out their best possible squad and choose the right playing XI from the available options.
“I don’t think anything has changed, and I feel that this team is a work in progress. Several people have asked me that what is going on with the Indian team? I tell them that most of the time, in the white-ball formats, especially T20Is, we don’t know what the best playing XI is, or even the best 15. We don’t know what combination suits us the best,” Dasgupta added.
Team India had a hard time nailing the balance of the side in the absence of pace-bowling all-rounders like Hardik Pandya and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Furthermore, the fact that the likes of Harshit Rana and Varun Chakaravarthy were also ruled out midway through the series, did not help the cause.
Edited by Gokul Nair