Former Indian captain and head coach Anil Kumble talks about Indian’s World Cup squad. The anticipated marquee event will commence from 5th October. The opening match will take place between England and New Zealand, the finalist of previous edition.
India announced it’s provisional World Cup squad on 5th September. However, Indian’s legendary spinner Anil Kumble highlights few concerns in the team. Indian’s World Cup was on the expected lines. There were no as such surprises in the 15-men squad.
Anil Kumble points out the lack of all-rounders in the squad
In a recent interview, Kumble emphasized the pressing need for more all-rounders in the Indian ODI World Cup squad. He highlighted that while having bowlers who can contribute with the bat is valuable, it’s equally important to have batters who can provide bowling options, thus increasing the team’s depth.
The 52-year old Anil Kumble said,
“The one problem that perhaps needed to be addressed from the last World Cup to this World Cup (I’m talking about the ODI World Cup) was that we needed more all-rounders, which has never been addressed. You don’t have batters who come and give you those options, and bowlers giving you some batting is secondary. But I think batters giving you bowling options certainly increases the depth,”
“We had four years and had to develop those players. Instructions had to be given to identified players, and they should have identified and said okay, you are the guys who are going to give me options. You know for example Yashasvi Jaiswal, I know he bowls a bit of leg break. But I have hardly seen him bowl in any match in the last one year,”
“Shreyas Iyer gives a bit of bowling. Now I don’t know with his back issue whether he’ll come in and bowl. Rohit used to bowl with the shoulder dislocation, and I know that he has that problem so he is not gonna bowl. So who’s it gonna be? You need options in the top. If you had that ideally you know in this line-up for an ideal sort of real batting depth, Jadeja at number eight would have been the best option but today he is at number 7,”
All Indian fans will be hoping that this hurt India in the World Cup. Team India will commence their World Cup campaign against Australia on 8th October in Chennai.
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