India captain Rohit Sharma on Tuesday said “90-95% of the team was settled” ahead of the T20 World Cup, which gets underway in Australia from Oct. 16.
In the last two matches of the Asia Cup, India has played two specialist quicks in Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh, while using all-rounder Hardik Pandya as the third seamer.
“When you talk about experiments, yes, we wanted to try out certain things. If you look at the combination we have been playing before the start of the Asia Cup, it was with four seamers, two spinners and the second spinner was an all-rounder. I always wanted to try and find answers as to what happens if you play with three seamers and two spinners, and the third spinner being an all-rounder,” Rohit said of the team combination after the Super 4 defeat against Sri Lanka in Dubai.
“When you’re playing against quality opposition, you want to challenge yourself. This was missing in our books; we’d never tried that combination. We wanted to try and see what happens here as well. In hindsight, our fourth seamer [Avesh Khan] who was here was not available for selection for the last two games because he was sick.”
“We were underdogs from the time that we came to the UAE. We all know how Pakistan and India are on their day,” said Sri Lanka’s Bhanuka Rajapaksa, who hit an unbeaten 25.
Proving a point
“So, we had less pressure and all we wanted to was prove a point to the world, especially to our nation because with all the crisis happening back home this is the only thing with which we could bring smiles to their faces.”
