CHENNAI: While India captain Rohit Sharma did not reveal much on what kind of combinations the team would play at the T20 World Cup, he made one thing clear. “I definitely wanted four spinners,” Sharma said at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday.
It has been one of the key debates since the squad for the global event, set to be played in the United States and West Indies, was announced on Monday. The Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee had named four frontline spinners — Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal — leaving out Rinku Singh, who was expected to play the finisher role.
Sharma, while addressing the topic, said that he doesn’t want to elaborate as other teams would be watching. “The reason for four spinners is this, which I’m not going to say in public. But I wanted four spinners for sure. With two of the spinners being allrounders who can bat, Axar and Jadeja, and two attacking spinners — Kuldeep and Chahal — it gives you the balance in the spin department.
Based on the team composition of the opposition, we can decide what we want to play with. We’ve played a lot of cricket there (Caribbean). We know what the conditions are like. With morning starts at 10-10.30 AM, there’s a little bit of technical aspect involved in this,” he said.
Without trying to read too much, it seems like the predominant focus is on the latter stages of the tournament in West Indies despite India playing their entire league stage in the USA. India will travel to the Caribbean only for the Super8 games and knockouts. With things not clear how the conditions would be for day matches that begin at 10.30AM local time (8PM IST), Sharma wanted all the options available when it came to the spin department. After all, when India toured West Indies in 2023, they played three spinners in all five games.
This is why someone like Rinku had to miss out. “It (not picking Rinku) is probably the toughest thing we have had to discuss. He has done nothing wrong, not even Shubman Gill for that matter. It is not his fault that he missed out. It’s about combinations,” Agarkar explained. “A couple of wrist spinners were included to give Rohit (Sharma) more options. There are two keepers, we needed an extra bowler. It’s just unfortunate. He’s in the reserves, so that tells you how close he came into being in the 15. But at the end of the day, you can only pick 15 players in the squad,” he added.
If India do pick three spinners, whether they will be able to accommodate Shivam Dube — whom they have picked for middle-overs hitting — in the XI is another question. “In the middle overs we wanted someone to come and play that role where he can play freely without worrying about who is bowling and who is not. We picked Shivam Dube based on the IPL and a few games before the IPL as well.”
But for him to feature in the XI, India may have to go with Jasprit Bumrah, Pandya, Dube and spinners sharing the load. The issue, though, is that Dube has bowled only obe over. “Honestly, if we need Shivam to bowl a few overs, he will bowl a few overs. Hardik as well, he has been bowling regularly in the IPL. Whenever it’s been required, he has come and bowled. Like Ajit (Agarkar) said, he’s come and played all the games, fitness wise, there are no issues.”
Rohit still has the option of asking for changes until May 25 if he and the selection committee feels so. But for now, Rohit has got the team he wanted. How far can they go? Only time will tell.