Former India captain Sourav Ganguly, on Saturday, offered advice to Team India for their upcoming ICC T20 World Cup campaign. He emphasized that the Men in Blue should play freely from the start of their innings in the tournament.
India will face Bangladesh in their only warm-up game on June 1 at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York. Ganguly expressed confidence in the team’s potential, describing India as having a “fantastic” side for the T20 World Cup and hoping they will perform well in the prestigious ICC event.
“We hope that India will play well. All the players are good. There are so many players in our country that it becomes difficult to select the playing XI. We are spoiled for choices. They have a fantastic side,” Ganguly told ANI at an event.
Regarding predictions for the top five teams, Ganguly acknowledged the unpredictability of the T20 format, noting that any side can advance. When asked if he had any advice for the Indian team, Ganguly said, “This is Rahul Dravid’s job because he is the coach. We will just watch and cheer for India. I would just like to say that we have to play freely in the T20 format.”
The ICC T20 World Cup will take place in the West Indies and the USA from June 1 to 29. India aims to end their ICC trophy drought, having last secured an ICC title with the Champions Trophy in 2013. Since then, India has reached the 50-over World Cup final in 2023, semifinals in 2015 and 2019, the title clash of the ICC World Test Championship in 2021 and 2023, the T20 WC final in 2014, and semifinals in 2016 and 2022, but has not clinched a major ICC trophy.
India hopes to win their first T20 WC title since the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2007 in South Africa. In the last edition held in Australia in 2022, India was eliminated by England in the semifinals by 10 wickets.
India T20 WC Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.