Asia Cup 2022, India vs Afghanistan: How constant shuffling of players has hurt Team India

Poor Asia Cup show could signal end to India's trial-and-error approach leading up to the Twenty20 World CupDUBAI: Four years ago, when he stood in for regular captain Virat Kohli in the 50-over Asia Cup here in the UAE, Rohit Sharma had claimed that the constant chopping and changing in the middle order was not going to help India's cause in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup. It's ironic that now, when he is the regular all-format captain and the T20 World Cup is just under two months away, the team management seems reluctant to settle down on a combination. The constant shuffling of players has hurt India, especially in this Asia Cup. 'Rotation', 'rest' and 'resource pool' have been the buzzwords in this Indian team over the last eight months. One may argue India lost Ravindra Jadeja to injury and were missing Jasprit Bumrah in the game against Sri Lanka on Tuesday night. The fact remains, however, that the team has played musical chairs with the middle order and the bowling attack.

"There will be a time when we will draw a line and say, 'this is the combination we want to play for the World Cup.' After this, we have two more series and then the World Cup. Till our squad is announced, we can try out a few players," Rohit said, staying firm on his strategy after back-to-back defeats to Pakistan and Lanka. The team management had identified players and assigned series to them in February itself. It was a conservative approach given the sheer volume of cricket the Indian players were scheduled to play throughout the year. "When you talk about experiments, we wanted to try out certain things. If you look at the combination we have been playing before the start of the Asia Cup, it was with four seamers, two spinners. The