The former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri reckons that the kind of cricket India are now playing in the shortest format under Rohit Sharma is the right way to approach T20 cricket. Shastri revealed when he was in charge of the Indian cricket team as head coach, he had also asked the Indian top order to do the same.
India’s performance in the last T20 World Cup was abysmal to say the least and it was, incidentally, also Shastri’s last tournament as India’s head coach. Since then, there hasn’t been too much of a change in the Indian set-up in terms of personnel, but India’s approach has certainly changed.
The Indian top order is now batting with a more attacking mindset and India are getting off to quick starts in the T20 games even when they are losing early wickets.
Ravi Shastri admitted that the Men in Blue were timid at the top in the shortest formats especially while talking about the new approach. Shastri said that the discussion had happened about the approach during his tenure but said that this approach is the best in the T20Is.
— Iframessports (@iframessports) August 25, 2022
Batting aggressively might not always work, but it’s still worth it: Ravi Shastri
According to Ravi Shastri, batting aggressively doesn’t always work because there will be games where the entire batting line-up might collapse, but if the players gain enough confidence from batting aggressively on a consistent basis, they can take that confidence to the big games, which might not happen if they don’t play aggressively in the lead up to the big games.
Shastri reckons the Indian top order doesn’t need to worry too much about failures because even if India’s attacking approach doesn’t work upfront, India has got quality players in the middle order to get the job done.
Since the time India has adopted the attacking approach, there have been question marks if India’s former captain Virat Kohli can adjust his game according to India’s new style of T20 batting. Shastri is of the view that Kohli can easily do that because he has got so much experience of playing in different situations in the IPL for so many years.