Former Indian wicket-keeper bat Deep Dasgupta reckons the biggest challenge for selectors and team management to finalise the playing combination after T20I series losses in Ireland and England. India was stunned 0-2 by Ireland and then suffered a 0-4 loss against England.

Dasgupta believes India has so much bench strength that they can make two T20I teams, which would be equally strong. However, India is giving chances to young players and they are trying to figure out their best combination for the next World Cup.

After a disappointing UK tour, India registered a comprehensive 3-0 win against Zimbabwe while playing away.

“In the next one and a half years, the most important thing in the format will be to figure out what the combination is, and roughly speaking, what the best 15 is? At this time, if I say this, people might laugh at me, but factually we can make two teams, and chances will be that both teams will be equally good. So, that brings up a challenge, because we have 30 players, but to reduce it down to 15 players, that will be a challenge. We do have the players,” Deep Dasgupta said on his YouTube channel.

The former Bengal cricketer said India is not sure what their best playing XI is and that is leading to indifferent results.

“I don’t think anything has changed, and I feel that this team is a work in progress. Several people have asked me that what is going on with the Indian team? I tell them that most of the time, in the white-ball formats, especially T20Is, we don’t know what the best playing XI is, or even the best 15. We don’t know what combination suits us the best,” Dasgupta added.

India will next take on Sri Lanka in a two-match Test series.