I wanted to talk about the rotational policy regarding Indian team before the ICC events about how much matches the players played a year before the main event took place.
I see people are disappointed with few players missing out many games off late so I have found out the number of matches that these players played in India's previous 2 successful campaigns (2011 WC & 2013 CT) and have tried to compare it with the current squad.
So here we talk about 2011 WC
India played about 32 ODIs from 1 year preceding the 2011WC
Player | No. Of Matches |
|---|
| Virender Sehwag | 12 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 4 |
| Gautam Gambhir | 14 |
| Virat Kohli | 30 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 20 |
| MS Dhoni | 23 |
| Suresh Raina | 29 |
| Yusuf Pathan | 15 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 11 |
| Zaheer Khan | 15 |
| Munaf Patel | 11 |
| Sreesanth | 10 |
| Ashish Nehra | 24 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 7 |
| Piyush Chawla | 1 |
You could see from the above table that most of the players hardly played 25 games which shows that the players were kept fresh before the tournament so that they were not overburdened with the number of games played. The point to notice was that inexperienced players with a lot of potential like Virat Kohli and Raina played almost all games while settled/ageing players demanded rest.
Strange enough, but one of the leading spinners for India in this tournament in Piyush Chawla just played one game in a period stretching upto 12 months before the World Cup!
Now, this is a more interesting one i.e. 2013 Champions Trophy
India played about 24 ODIs in the year preceding the 2013 Champions Trophy
Players | No. Of Matches |
|---|
| Rohit Sharma | 16 |
| Shikhar Dhawan | 0 |
| Virat Kohli | 24 |
| Dinesh Karthik | 0 |
| Suresh Raina | 24 |
| MS Dhoni | 23 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 17 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 23 |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 8 |
| Umesh Yadav | 8 |
| Ishant Sharma | 8 |
| Irfan Pathan | 12 |
| Murali Vijay | 0 |
| R Vinay Kumar | 7 |
| Amit Mishra | 0 |
Some big surprises here! Leading run scorer of the tournament Shikhar Dhawan was completely out of sync playing his last ODI in 2011. Also Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay and Amit Mishra came up from no where. The bowling line-up looks completely weak on experience and game time.
Eventually this team was unbeaten in the tournament decimating their oppositions!
Proves my point that it's not only the game time that matters but the role clarity that plays a part.
Kohli & Raina were great young performers who had gained fair bit of experience before the tournament began. Dhawan had just scored fastest ever Test century in some 90-odd balls (you've got to be joking to keep him out from your OD-side). Ashwin & Jadeja was a great spin bowling pair back in the day!
If you see the current squad, it doesn't look as bad when we talk about not having game time
India have played 34 T20Is in the last 12 months
Players | No. Of Matches |
|---|
| Rohit Sharma | 25 |
| KL Rahul | 12 |
| Virat Kohli | 14 |
| SKY | 24 |
| Dinesh Karthik | 18 |
| Hardik Pandya | 21 |
| Axar Patel | 14 |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 26 |
| Harshal Patel | 17 |
| Jasprit Bumrah | 8 |
| Yuzvendra Chahal | 17 |
| Rishabh Pant | 25 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin | 10 |
| Arshdeep Singh | 11 |
| Deepak Hooda | 12 |
KL came back from a surgery, Rohit Sharma wasn't as fit off late, Kohli looked out of touch. On the other hand, the likes of Bhuvi, SKY, Pant, DK, Hardik, Axar, etc. They all got plenty of games. So I am pretty sure we are going with a settled side this time around.
However, given the poor knockouts record, I don't even want to think about that title but confident that certainly there would be moments to enjoy!
