WI v IND: Should Play Your Strongest X1, Six To Eight Months Ahead Of A Big Tournament, Says Abhishek Nayar

Former India cricketer Abhishek Nayar believes that the Rohit Sharma-led side should be playing their strongest team six to eight months ahead of a major tournament like the upcoming ODI World Cup. In India’s six-wicket loss to West Indies in the second ODI at Kensington Oval, they rested veterans like captain Rohit Sharma and talismanic batter Virat Kohli, giving game time to Sanju Samson and Axar Patel in another round of experiments.
But Samson and Axar couldn’t make the chance count, scoring only nine and one respectively as India suffered a batting collapse to be all out for 181. In reply, West Indies chased down the target with 80 balls to spare to level the series 1-1 and set up a series decider at Port of Spain on Tuesday.

“I believe since the time you are six to eight months away from a big tournament, you should play with your strongest eleven unless there is an injury. Play with them only because once you do that, everyone gets to know each other’s strengths and it will help you to experience playing together in different situations and learn,” Nayar was quoted as saying by JioCinema.

Former India opener Aakash Chopra was not pleased by the experimentation in the second ODI and felt the senior duo of Rohit and Virat shouldn’t have been rested from the match. 

“I don’t know why Rohit and Virat were rested; they haven’t played a lot of cricket because if you see, after the WTC Final there was a break of three weeks and there were only seven days of play in the India-WI Test series.”

“After that, you play one ODI and leave the next. If you want to leave the T20s aside, leave it. I mean even if you don’t play T20s this year, how is it going to affect anyone because we don’t have the T20 WC this year? Rohit and Kohli anyway, do not feature in T20Is. So, you are relaxing just with the purpose of relaxing.”

RP Singh, the former left-arm pacer who was a member of the winning Indian team in the 2007 Men’s T20 World Cup in South Africa, feels that the side hasn’t sorted roles very well in the bowling department in the run-up to ODI World Cup.

“You should know your eleven as we are so close to the World Cup. At least, you should know the ten key players and keep playing them. Also, as far as batting and bowling are concerned, their role should be similar to how they are willing to use them in the World Cup.”

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“So, if Hardik is using the new ball here, they must be thinking of using him during the World Cup with the new ball too, at least for a few overs. But the question arises -- can he make an impact with the new ball? Or who are the spinners they will go with and things like that,” he concluded.