India decided to field six batters and five specialist bowlers during the fourth T20I of the five-match series against New Zealand. They decided to replace the injured Ishan Kishan with Arshdeep Singh in the playing XI and opted for a strong bowling attack. This decision ended up backfiring for the Men in Blue as they had little to no batting depth and got bundled out for 165 runs.
Suryakumar explains rationale behind the questionable change
Replacing Kishan with Arshdeep did raise questions over India's team selection for the match. However, India captain Suryakumar Yadav clarified that they "purposely" decided to play six batters for the game as not only did they want to challenge themselves, but also wanted to play all the players who are part of the team's T20 World Cup squad.
“I feel we purposely played six batters today. We wanted to have five perfect bowlers and wanted to challenge ourselves. Like for example, if we’re chasing 200 or 180, and we wanted to see if we were two down or three down, how does it look? But then it’s fine at the end of the day. And we wanted to play all the players who are part of the World Cup squad. Otherwise, we would have played other ones," Suryakumar said in the post-match presentation.
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Suryakumar also said that he would decide to field once again if he wins the toss in the fifth T20I despite suffering a 50-run defeat to Visakhapatnam. He explained that the reason behind this is that the team is performing well while batting first and want to test themselves by taking on a run-chase of 180-200 runs.
“We’ve been batting really well when we’ve batted first. So I wanted the guys to take that responsibility if we’re chasing 180 or 200 and two wickets or three wickets are down and see how we bat. So it’s a good challenge. Hopefully if we get an opportunity again, we might chase again," Suryakumar stated.
Series finale to be played soon
Meanwhile, the ongoing five-match T20I series between India and New Zealand currently stands at 3-1 after the Kiwis' thumping win in the fourth game. The hosts have already clinched the series and will be aiming to end it on a high by getting a positive result in the fifth T20I that will be played on January 31.