Indian T20 team needs more batters who can bowl: Kumble
New Delhi (PTI): Power hitting will rule T20 cricket going forward and the Indian team needs to play a brand of cricket where big-hitting batters contribute with the ball for the balance of the side, former India coach Anil Kumble has suggested.
The Indian team was blown away by England's power hitters Alex Hales and Jos Buttler in the T20 World Cup semifinal in Adelaide on Thursday.
India's timid batting approach invited criticism from all quarters as it led to a heavy defeat that spelt the ouster of the side from the premier ICC event.
"...what I see as something that certainly needs to be done is, how we keep talking about bowlers need to bat. But I think in Indian cricket, you need batters to bowl too for the balance of the team," Kumble was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.com.
"That's exactly what England have. They had too many choices. They used Liam Livingstone. Moeen Ali has hardly bowled in this tournament. So those are the choices that you need."
Kumble found fault with the selection of Indian teams, saying the current trend needs to change.
"Unfortunately even in the India A team that gets picked, it's mostly batters who don't bowl. It's important to create that brand of cricket and say that this is how the Indian team is going to do it and it should follow right through the system.
"I think the more and more you play T20s, it's going to be like this, where you just come and show your power. So that's exactly how I think T20 is going to go forward," he said.
Kumble is of the view that every player should understand the specific role assigned to him and once that's finalised the team should stick to that.
He went to the extent of saying that that role should not be restricted just to the national team and the players must go back to domestic cricket with the same mindset.
"One is of course having that brand of cricket and then choosing the players to do that but I think it's also important that these players play their specific roles wherever they play.
"Because it's not about just playing that role for India and then going back to your domestic cricket and franchise cricket and then changing the way you're going to go about it. For example, Pant today (Thursday) batted for India at No. 6, he walked in in the 19th over. He never does that in domestic cricket," he said.
"So you need some kind of role definition as well there and that's something I think is very critical if you're going to build a potent team where you need a back-up for those roles and not necessarily your six best players whatever role they can. It's very difficult to do that in a World Cup."
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Karnataka Leadership row: All eyes on Siddaramaiah''s trip to Delhi to attend CWC meet
Bengaluru (PTI): All eyes are set on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s trip to Delhi to attend the Congress Working Committee meeting.
The meeting comes in the midst of the leadership issue in the state, where Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar’s supporters are interested in seeing him as the next CM soon. About his visit to Delhi, Siddaramaiah told reporters in Davangere, “I am going for the CWC meeting today but I don’t go to Delhi frequently.”
Chief Minister had recently said inside the Karnataka Assembly that the party high command appears to be on his side and he would complete his five-year tenure.
Before leaving for New Delhi for the CWC meeting, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters that all the confusion would be sorted out.
“I will speak there. Why will I speak here?” Kharge said.
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As the reporters asked him when the confusion over leadership in the state would be sorted out, he said, “It will be sorted out. You don’t need to worry about it.”
Shivakumar on Wednesday dismissed speculation about a possible change of guard in the state after Makara Sankranti, saying such talk exists only in the media and not within the party or government.
Shivakumar, who was in Delhi, said he is not meeting anyone during this trip.
"Kharge is in Delhi. I think Rahul Gandhi came yesterday, and I don't want to disturb him," he said.
Asked about the change of guard in Karnataka, he told reporters, "The speculation is only in the media. There is no speculation within the party or anywhere in the government. The media is only speculating about things."
Speaking about his current role, the Deputy CM said, "I would love to be a party worker rather than (holding) any position in the party. That is permanent for me," adding that he has been working for the party since 1980, completing 45 years of service.
Congress MLA from Ramanagara, H A Iqbal Hussain, a Shivakumar loyalist, has even predicted that there will be a leadership change in the state on January 6 or 9.
Sources in the Chief Minister’s Office told PTI that leadership change may not figure in the CWC meeting in New Delhi.
“The information we have is that this is only about drawing strategies for the upcoming Assembly elections in the country,” a source said.
Besides Siddaramaiah, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu will also be attending the meeting,” he added.
