Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar expects a few retirements after India were knocked out of the ICC T20 World Cup on Thursday, 10 November by England. India fell to a 10-wicket defeat at Adelaide after a meek display by both bat and ball. Defending 169 runs against a tall England batting line-up, Rohit Sharma and his men failed to contain the openers – Jos Buttler and Alex Hales, who combined to hit 170 runs in just 16 overs of the game.
India failed to get away in the powerplay while batting in the first innings, but ended up scoring 169 runs, owing to a strong partnership between Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya in the middle overs. Coming into defend the total, the England batters charted out their counterattack, simply lifting the ball over the infield to gather fast runs. This led to England scoring 63 runs in the powerplay, which essentially took India out of the game.
“Having won the Indian Premier League on his first assignment as the captain, they would have marked Hardik Pandya out as the next captain. Hardik Pandya will definitely take over the team in the future and there will be some retirements, you never know. Players will be giving it a lot of thought. There are several players in their mid-30s who will be reconsidering their position in the Indian T20I team,” Gavaskar said.
The veterans of the Indian team failed to come clutch on the day as all among Rohit Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami dished out below par performances. India opted for Rishabh Pant in place of Dinesh Karthik in the semis but that move did not work either.
