“You certainly need T20 specialists”: Anil Kumble suggests India to select different squads for ODIs and T20Is

India’s performance in the recent T20 World Cup 2022 semi-final forced many experts to look at the approach of the Indian team in the T20 format of the game. Former Indian captain Anil Kumble has also suggested the Indian team to look at T20 specialist players.

KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma opened for Team India in the T20 World Cup, and the way they approached the powerplay overs has been questioned heavily. In the semi-final against England, India scored just 38 runs in the powerplay, and it enabled a lot of pressure on the Indian middle-order batters.

The teams like England and Australia have invested heavily in some T20 specialist players. England brought in Alex Hales, whereas Australia gave chance to Tim David, who has not even played a lot of international cricket till now.

Anil Kumble suggests India to select different squads for ODIs and T20Is

Former Indian spinner Anil Kumble has suggested the Indian team to pick different teams according to different formats of the game. He said that the T20 format required specialists, and it should be different from the ODIs as both formats requires a very different amount of approach.

Kumble cited the example of England and Australia who won the last two T20 World Cups. He said that both teams invested pretty heavily in their all-rounders. He said that a player like Liam Livingstone comes at number 7 for England, and Marcus Stoinis bats at number 6 for Australia which gives them a lot of stability in their playing 11.

“Definitely, you need separate teams. You need, certainly, T20 specialists,” Anil Kumble said as quoted by India Today.

“I think what this English team has shown and even the last (T20) World Cup champions Australia have shown is that you need to invest in a lot of all-rounders.”

Anil Kumble on having different coaches and captains for different formats

Kumble was assured about having different squads for different formats, but he was hesitant about having a different coach or a captain depending on the format. England currently have different captains (Ben Stokes for the red ball & Jos Buttler for the white ball) and different coaches (Brendon McCullum for the red ball & Matthew Mott for the white ball) for different formats, and it has worked for them.

“I’m not really sure whether you need a different captain or a different coach. It all depends on what team you are going to pick and then choose how you want to build the support and the leadership around it,” Kumble added.