India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour is hopeful that the team will know its final team for the T20 World Cup by the end of the upcoming five-match T20I series against England.
Rathour stated that the Indian team has a settled unit and there won’t be many changes in the squad.
However, Rathour feels it is crucial for the team to have potent bench strength in case of injuries or poor form. The upcoming T20 World Cup will take place in India and the hosts will look to make the most of their own conditions.
“The T20 World Cup is in India, so I just want the batting unit to get settled basically. By the time we finish this series, we should know, ‘this is the team which is going to play the World Cup’. So hopefully that will happen in this series. I am already sure that there wouldn’t be too many changes anyway, because we are a pretty settled unit at the moment. But in case somebody loses form or somebody gets injured, as a batting unit you just want to get settled now,” said Vikram Rathour while talking to ESPN Cricinfo.
Meanwhile, India last won a major ICC event back in 2013, when MS Dhoni lead the team to victory in the Champions Trophy. Since then, the Indian team has not been able to come up with its best in the knockout matches despite consistent performances in the group stages of the big event. Thus, Virat Kohli’s team will look to turn the tables in the forthcoming T20 World Cup and go all the way in the major event.
On the other hand, Vikram Rathour is not concerned regarding the strike rate of Indian batsmen as compared to England batters. Rathour emphasized that it is crucial to win matches and the strike rate doesn’t concern him.
“You are looking to win a game. If you are chasing, strike rate doesn’t mean anything actually. You are looking to finish a game and chase a target – whether you do it in 10 overs or 20 overs, you are looking to win the game. Batting first, at times, yeah. If the conditions are good you need to be looking to put a par score on board. As far as our T20 (batting) is concerned we have been doing that pretty consistently. So I’m not really, really concerned; I mean as far as we are winning games and we are putting par scores and chasing targets, I’m okay with whatever strike rates they are going at,” said Vikram Rathour.
All the five T20Is will take place at the grand Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad with the first match to be played on 12th March.
