Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri believes having the right blend of youth and experience has been pivotal in helping his side maintain their stranglehold at the top of the ICC Men’s Team Rankings.
India recently pipped Australia to become the No. 1 ranked Test nation ahead of next month’s ICC World Test Championship final, and Rohit Sharma’s side also holds a healthy lead at the top of the T20I rankings. Shastri was asked about the rankings on the latest episode of The ICC Review, and the India great paid tribute to the recent consistency his former side have found under the captaincy of Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid.
“It’s a tribute to their consistency, their fitness, and the way they’ve worked over the last five or six years to now be hungry and proud of wanting to belong there,” Shastri said, as quoted by ICC.
“It’s the quality of players. If you look at these players, a lot of them are at their prime when you look at the Indian Test side. They’re experienced, they’re at that age where they’re battle-hardened, and they’ve travelled around the world.
They know what Test cricket is all about, they know what one-day cricket is all about, they know what T20 cricket is all about. And the mix is between experienced players and youth. There’s youth filtering in, especially in the white-ball formats of the game. But as a nucleus in Test match cricket, there’s tons of experience. So that’s what makes the difference,” he added.
“When you have that, you’ll see sides that make it to the top two or three, and as history will tell you, they remain there for three or four years,” Shastri said.