Former Pakistan cricketer Salman Butt on Monday followed on India’s defeat to New Zealand in the 2021 T20 World Cup and told that a major factor could be the quiet amount of cricket Indian cricketers have been playing at a stretch.
India has had a fear start to the match, losing their opening 2 matches to Pak and New Zealand. This was later the 2021 IPL decided less than a week before the T20 World Cup.
Talking about the effects of a hectic agenda, Butt replied on his YouTube channel:
“It is important for players to be fresh. Look, you are doing the same thing every day (when you play a hectic schedule). There is no doubt that the incentives, salaries, and contracts are very high and attractive. But at times, you have to have your heart in the job that you have to perform optimally. If you are not fresh enough, if you can’t disconnect and connect again, then your concentration span or your intensity to go out and do your best, that gets hampered. There is a drop in your interest.”
The former Pakistan batsman said Team India had a short time to regroup after the IPL.
“It needs to be managed in a way that ahead of a major tournament, teams can regroup. For 15-20 days or for a month before the World Cup, teams should have their own preparation instead of playing in some competition, especially in one where they are playing as part of separate teams.”
Butt also assumed that it was only simple for teams to suffer the kind of bad run India is having when they are performing so much cricket, computing that they just need to understand what is going on and move on.
“India just needs to reboot. People need to realize that when there is so much hype, so much pressure, and when you are playing so much cricket, then these sudden and drastic defeats do come. When the volume of cricket that you play is so high, then this will happen. You need to absorb it and move on,” Salman Butt added.
Butt went on to add:
“And they didn’t regroup before the World Cup. Before the Test series in England, India’s players had a month off. Then they played the series and then immediately had the IPL. Four days after the IPL final, the World Cup started, and the first match in the World Cup is one where expectations are sky-high.”
India doesn’t need major modifications despite defeats: Salman Butt
Salman Butt emphasized that India doesn’t need extensive changes after the 2 big failures to Pakistan and New Zealand, but rather, they should address issues that were from the start of the competition.
“Coming back from bad form and drastic failures is a part of the game. This is not the first time in the world that a team has lost like this. I don’t think they need major changes. The issues that needed to be addressed before the World Cup are still the only areas where they need a change. Carrying half-fit players, some selection issues, over-reliance on some players who don’t have a lot of international exposure — all of this hurt India,” Butt added.
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