After India’s second successive ODI series defeat inside a month, questions are being raised over their preparations for the next year’s world cup. Bangladesh defeated India by five runs in the second ODI in Dhaka on Wednesday to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.
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Fingers are being pointed at the practice of resting senior cricketers regularly with the Indian team management now being accused of too much experimentation which has resulted in inconsistency .
A direct impact of workload management has seen an in-form Virat Kohli struggling right after having struck a rich vein of form during the T20 World Cup earlier this year in Australia. Kohli, along with a host of senior players, was rested from the limited-overs tour of New Zealand that immediately followed the showpiece event and made his return in the ongoing tour of Bangladesh.
However, Kohli scored 9 and 5 in the first two matches of the Bangladesh series with former India cricketer-turned-commentator Vivek Razdan advising against resting any player who is doing well.
“I would like to make just one suggestion. Stop experimenting,” Razdan said while on-air during the 2nd ODI in Dhaka. “In the past few months, we have seen this happening. Time to halt this line of thinking. There’s been too much of experimentation. Still there’s a lot of time before the ODI World Cup.”
A whopping 35 players have made international debut for India in the past three years.
In 2022 alone, India have used 34 different players across 22 ODIs. The next on this list is West Indies with 28 players in 21 ODIs while current world champions England have used 25 players in 12 matches.
“Need to understand another thing. When a player is in form, don’t rest him. Let him play. Look at Virat Kohli – he was in good form at the T20 World Cup but then you rested him from the New Zealand tour. Now, he has started struggling again,” Razdan pointed out.
He continued, “A player gets into form by playing (regularly). So please do not rest a player the moment he gets in form. World Cup is now a few months away. A team should have been finalised by now that would play your first match (of the tournament). You would want every player to get into form before that.”
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