Former Indian wicket-keeper-batsman Deep Dasgupta believes injuries to multiple players are adding to head coach Gautam Gambhir’s frustration. Dasgupta reckons the long list of injured players is not helping Gambhir finalise his team combination and stitch long-term plans.
The likes of Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah and Nitish Kumar Reddy have been picked for Afghanistan T20Is, but their final selection is subject to fitness clearance.
Bumrah recently missed the two-match Test series against Sri Lanka due to a knee injury, which he suffered on the England tour. The ace pacer’s absence was clearly felt in the second Test at Colombo as Indian bowlers could not wipe out Sri Lanka’s tail in the second innings.
Deep Dasgupta said on his YouTube Channel, “The next big assignment is New Zealand, for which you want all your pacers ready so that you can choose from that. But knowing who’ll be fit and ready with competitive matches under their belts is important. So I can understand Gautam Gambhir’s frustration and the same with the captain as well. So it’s important for the key stakeholders to understand what the coach and the captain want.”
“It is very important to understand what the coach and captain want. They are the two who drive the Indian team. The others are support staff who only play a supporting role. Hence, I can understand why Gautam Gambhir must be angered by the injury issues. You can’t form a team properly and plan things for a period of time without knowing who the players available are.”
Meanwhile, the former Bengal cricketer admitted that the economics of the game forces India to play more matches than other International teams.
“This is going to be a practical challenge in the future. Indian team is very important in the cricketing ecosystem, and they have to play for the economics of the sport. The sport will die if thought isn’t put on its economics. Those economics dictate that the Indian team needs to play more cricket than the other teams. So being ready for the scheduling challenges is going to be important,” said Dasgupta (via the aforementioned source).
“What you can do is prioritize the format for which the World Cup is coming up. That’ll help manage when the formats are clashing at any time. The clash is going to be there however much you plan. Planning this way is important. This scheduling challenge will be there, and how you plan will matter.”
India’s next ODI series is against the West Indies.
