FORMAT YOUNGEST, FAITH IN OLD

After moving away from Rohit & Kohli in 2023, BCCI selectors chose experience over youth for the 2024 T20 World Cup SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN @ Chennai AFTER the disappointing yet predictable ending to India's last T20 World Cup campaign in Australia, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) realised something had to change.

-  SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

That change, they held, had to be layered; leadership and a more dynamic top-order. Throughout the first half of 2023, Hardik Pandya had led the side and the top-order had Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan as the untouchables while a mix of Suryakumar Yadav, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma and others did a job share at No. 3.

At the five-match series in the US and the West Indies (in the same grounds where the World Cup would be played in June), Yashasvi Jaiswal was blooded as they wanted at least one left-handed opener for the purposes of match-ups. It was the kind of thinking that some of the other teams had been doing in this format for at least the past decade (all World Cup winning teams, including India in 2007, had begun or finished the World Cup with at least one southpaw in the top three). India had moved away from it and thanks to a nature of a few untouchables in the top-order (Rohit, Kohli, and to an extent, KL Rahul), they were going against the grain.