The Asia Cup 2022 was supposed to be India's time to shine on the international stage but instead, the team was eliminated in the Super 4s stage after losing to eventual finalists Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The side was supposed to finalise their playing XI for the T20 World Cup but chopping and changing the team has affected their flow, and this has peeved off former India chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar.
India started off on a dominant note, beating Pakistan and Hong Kong in their group stage ties before losing to Babar Azam's men and Sri Lanka in the Super 4. Despite their emphatic 101-run win against Afghanistan, India failed to ensure themselves a seat in the final.
Speaking to Khaleej Times, the legendary batter believes that such experimentation should happen in bilateral series rather than tournaments like the Asia Cup where one should concentrate on playing the right combination and winning matches.
“The team is going ahead with their experiments. They picked Dinesh Karthik, but they haven’t played him, and then they played Ravichandran Ashwin for the first time yesterday (Tuesday) against Sri Lanka.
Obviously, the team management wants to give all the players a chance as they are trying to find their best XI for next month’s World Cup.
"But then this event is also very important. The Asia Cup is a very big tournament. Winning matches in a tournament like this are very important for the morale of the team. Also, I think it’s important to have the winning combination. As I said, the Asia Cup is a very big event.
"You can experiment maybe in a bilateral series, but the Asia Cups and the World Cup, are major tournaments. In these tournaments, you need to win, that’s very important,” he said.
Ahead of the marquee cricket tournament, India will next play limited-overs matches against Australia and South Africa at home over the next 30 days before they leave for Down Under for the World Cup.
