'India might as well field two playing elevens in future' - Ravi Shastri on India's bench strength

The bio-bubble and the injuries have positively benefited the Indian Cricket team as they have been able to explore their bench strength and have discovered many young talents who have risen through the ranks and have grabbed all the opportunities that came their way with both hands.

The India tour of Australia, comprising three-match ODI and T20I series followed by four-match Border Gavaskar Trophy, saw youngsters like Shubhman Gill, T Natarajan, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, and Mohammed Siraj stepping up and shouldering the responsibility of winning games for India. Similarly, the biggest positive from the just-concluded four-match Test series against England was the emergence of Axar Patel as a prolific spin all-rounder for the team in the purest format of the game. 

The performance delivered by the young Indian rookies managed to impress the head coach Ravi Shastri. The veteran is amazed by the number of players who have played for India in the past six months and believes that this is the biggest positive to have emerged from the bio-bubbles.

“You’d have never imagined the number of players that would’ve played for India six months ago. This has been the most positive thing to come out of the recent bubble (in Australia), considering India had to travel with enlarged squads.

Ravi Shastri opines on the possibility of playing two teams

“Normally, we would travel with 17 or 18 cricketers. But because of the bubble, because of the quarantine laws (in Australia), we had to go with 25-30 or more cricketers. So, as a result, you had to dig deep and pick your best. As luck would have it, we were left with no choice but to play all 30 of them. So, we got to find out who’s good and who’s not. And it’s something that has worked well,” Shastri said while speaking to Times of India.

Seeing the tremendous performance of the players, Shastri believes that in the future India can play two different teams if they wish to rest their senior players considering the busy schedule of the cricket teams in the year 2021.

“These are things one would not imagine, but circumstances have made things happen and I’m glad the youngsters who got the opportunity have grabbed it with both hands. India might as well field two playing elevens out there,” Shastri added,