Former chairman of selectors MSK Prasad thinks that there should be 26 members in the squad India will be sending to Australia due to the pandemic. He also thinks that this will provide a good scope to the selectors to identify promising players for the future.
The need of 26-man squad
Keeping the coronavirus condition is mind, Pakistan and West Indies sent jumbo squads to England. MSK Prasad, former chairman of selectors believes that even India should do the same and send a 26-member team to Australia for their upcoming series at the end of the year. “Since we cannot trust the net bowlers about their exposure to COVID, it would be ideal to go with a large contingent as we can be assured of all the players’ safety as they will be in a bio-secure environment.”
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Prasad reasoned further in an interaction with PTI, “In case someone tests COVID positive, then the players from this contingent can be picked as they would have served the mandatory quarantine period.” In case someone carries some injury as the series will happen just after IPL 2020, having back-up options will be beneficial for the team.
Platform to identify future stars
According to Prasad sending a large team will also give a healthy preparation to the main team. In this process the batsmen have a variety of bowlers at their disposal during training. “Even for our main bowlers, they will have fresh batsmen to bowl at unlike the same bunch of first-team boys. For instance, Shreyas Iyer is very aggressive and at times can be unorthodox. So, he might offer a variety of skills which the Australian batsman might posses.” He added,” On the other hand, a left-arm Khaleel Ahmed’s presence will help in preparing for Mitchell Starc’s angled deliveries.”
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This will also provide a platform to the potential future stars of Indian cricket according to MSK Prasad. “In this process, you can also monitor those players who can be the potential guys for different spots in future.”
26-man Indian squad for Australia by MSK Prasad
Openers: Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul.
Middle-order: Virat Kohli (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer.
Wicketkeeper: Rishabh Pant, Wriddhiman Saha.
Spinners: Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shahbaz Nadeem, Rahul Chahar, Kuldeep Yadav.
All-rounder: Hardik Pandya.
