There are plenty of players in India’s 15-member squad, who can play the finisher’s role in the closing stages of an innings, felt Gavaskar, which makes it quite a selection headache for the team management
Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma and Rinku Singh. Pics/PTI, Getty Images
India batting great Sunil Gavaskar feels there are two key tasks that Suryakumar Yadav & Co need to achieve at the upcoming Asia Cup in the UAE, specifically with an eye on the T20 World Cup which will be jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka in February-March 2026. The first will be to zero in on who will do the finisher’s job in the team, and the second is to fix the death bowling combination alongside pace ace Jasprit Bumrah. The continental showpiece event gets underway with Afghanistan taking on Hong Kong on September 9 in Abu Dhabi. India will start their campaign against hosts UAE at Dubai on September 10.
Selection headache
There are plenty of players in India’s 15-member squad, who can play the finisher’s role in the closing stages of an innings, felt Gavaskar, which makes it quite a selection headache for the team management. “It [area to work on] will probably be who can be the finisher for them [Team India]. That is something at the moment they are not very certain about because they have got so many options. And I say they are not certain about it because they do have many options. They’ve got Rinku Singh as a finisher. They’ve got Shivam Dube. Hardik Pandya can also play that role. Tilak Varma is another option. So, they will have to zero in on about two or three of them for their squad [planning ahead] for the [T20] World Cup,” Gavaskar, 76, told mid-day during an interaction organised by Sony Sports Network, the hosts broadcasters for the Asia Cup.
Sunil Gavaskar
Death-overs are crucial
Additionally, the legendary opener, who made 10,122 runs in 125 Tests, believes that Bumrah’s bowling partner at the death is also uncertain at the moment. “I think death bowling [is another area to work on], the last four overs particularly. Obviously, Bumrah will bowl two of them, but who is going to be bowling those other two? That is an area that they will be looking to get some idea from this tournament,” Gavaskar, 76, added.
Here the options to partner Bumrah at the death are Hardik Pandya, Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana. However, despite these couple of aspects that require some fine-tuning, Gavaskar remains confident that India will win all their matches with ease as they have a highly-skilled squad with great depth through and through. “India has got a very, very good team in this tournament. India has got real champion players from No. 1 to 14 [15]. I would be very surprised if India don’t win all the matches comfortably,” Gavaskar signed off.
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