We want to try out different combos: Shastri

Ranchi, February 11 

Not reading too much into India’s surprise loss to Sri Lanka in the first T20I, team director Ravi Shastri today said the endeavour is to try out various combinations by giving everyone a chance ahead of the World T20 next month.

Stunned by the inexperienced Sri Lankan side on a green wicket at Pune, India would aim to regain the winning touch and keep the three-match series alive when they take on the island nation in the second match here tomorrow.

“An ideal scenario would be to give most of the guys who are part of the World Cup squad an opportunity ahead of the tournament. That will be the endeavour but you will have to see what the conditions are, what the state of the series is and decide accordingly,” said Shastri.

Asked about the criticism of the pitch following the first game, he said, “If the pitch is good, we say it’s good. If the pitch does a lot, we will say it did a lot. Why should we be scared of saying what we feel? It’s very clear that it did a little too much but we should have adapted well.

“No excuses for losing the match but we should have scored 140, it would have been a good competitive score on that surface.” 

He said consistency was not a problem with the current team. “It’s a confident side, they played some very good cricket in the last 18 months or two years, they played excellent cricket and that’s why you see the results. If we lacked consistency, we wouldn’t have become the No. 1 in Tests and No. 2 in T20.” 

He said it was not easy to get used to the conditions after the tour of Australia right away. “We came straight here from Australia, there was a gap of just 4-5 days. The pitch in the first T20 was different from what we get in the Subcontinent. There was a little bit for the bowlers, it turned, it seamed, there was bounce, it was two-paced. So it wasn’t easy and the batsmen faltered, but no excuses.” 

Shastri said India have the resources to play well in all conditions, adding that he hadn’t seen the pitch yet. “I haven’t seen the pitch yet, but there’s a lot of sand in the outfield, so it’s probably going to be quite dry. If you think it’s going to turn, we have the resources and that’s the idea of this team to have resources for different conditions.” — PTI 

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