India shouldn’t wait for the senior players in their Test squad to call it a day and then begin their search to find replacements, feels former head coach Ravi Shastri.
With the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli and captain Rohit Sharma in their mid thirties, India will have to soon replenish their pool of players.
And the process should start immediately with Shastri citing the example of how Australian cricket team does by charting up a plan for the future to be ready with quality replacements when the need arises.
“That’s what the think-tank and the selectors will have to sit and see, draw a plan, have the vision to see how you replenish your squad,” Shastri said on Star Sports.
“Australians are very good at doing that over the years. They see where they want to be in three years’ time. They don’t wait for suddenly five players to go away from the side,” he added.
Shastri says the inclusion of youngster will accelerate their growth as their will be a constant exchange of ideas and passing down of knowledge.
But for someone to come in, a place will have to be created first and the team management must be willing to take the hard calls.
“They’re constantly getting in youth. So there’s a combination of youth and experience all the time. The youngsters learn quickly from the senior players. So your team is healthy and strong right through. So that planning has to be done. They’re hard calls, people might not like it, but it’s the team’s interest that is paramount and that’s how you should look at it,” Shastri said.
Even India captain Rohit Sharma has talked about the future, admitting there are plenty of youngsters who have been making the right noise in domestic cricket.
“Any tournament you play, you start looking at what possibly you can do moving ahead. Honestly, the game just got over. We haven’t really given too much thought to what we want to do in the future. Obviously, there will be some talks around it and we’ll see whatever is required and whatever is best, whatever the brand of cricket we want to play in the next two years,” said Rohit.
“And who are the guys who can do that role for us? That is the question that we need to find answers to. And there are a lot of guys, there are a lot of players who are doing really well in our domestic cricket as well. It’s just about finding them and giving them that space, enough time to go forward and do the job for us. It’s all about that. The focus will be obviously on that,” he added.
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