Former England fast bowler Steve Finn lauded India’s depth in T20Is after Suryakumar Yadav’s men won the T20 World Cup title. India defeated New Zealand by 96 runs in the summit clash at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Sunday.
Finn highlighted that Kuldeep Yadav could not get his chances in the T20I showpiece and he would easily walk into any other team. Yadav played a solitary match against arch-rivals Pakistan and returned with figures of 1-14 in three overs he bowled.
The wrist spinner has scalped 95 wickets in 54 T20I matches at an average of 13.75 and an economy rate of 6.95 but Varun Chakravarthy was preferred as a first-choice spinner.
“Even look on the bench, Kuldeep Yadav barely played a game. He’s probably walk into every other world T20 team and he’s played one game. The depth is terrifying and I’m not sure other countries can keep up but they are going to have to find a way,” Steve Finn said on ‘For The Love Of Cricket’ podcast.
On the other hand, former England pacer Stuart Broad also noted that the likes of Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant were not part of India’s T20I squad.
“Jaiswal is not in this squad. Pant, Gill, whereas Sharma and Kohli have retired. The strength and depth is pretty outstanding. I wonder if we have to lean on the IPL, of these players learning to play in front of huge crowds, under pressure with big expectations. If you dont perform in a couple of games, you get questioned. You are playing an international level of pressure before you play international so you are used to it. The gap is going to keep getting bigger and bigger between India and the rest of the world,” he reflected.
Meanwhile, Finn said Sanju Samson was rightly given the Player of the Tournament award after he scored 321 runs in five matches at an average of 80.25 and a strike rate of just below 200.
“Rightly so. The impact in important games. I always think those medals are given to people just because they are the highest run-scorers or wicket-takers, but I think they should be given to people who have been most impactful at important times. Look at the games he’s played. He was impactful in most and the later stages,” he said.
Samson scored a match-winning knock of 89 runs off just 46 balls in the final against New Zealand.
