"In These Tournaments, You Need To...": Former Captain On India's Experimentations In Asia Cup

In an attempt to find their strongest playing XI for the upcoming T20 World Cup, Team India have tried out different compositions at the ongoing Asia Cup. So far, the Indian team management has tried different players, which hasn't really helped their case. After securing a safe passage from the Group stage, India failed to qualify for the final after defeats to Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the Super 4 stage. Speaking on India's chop-and-change policy, former India selector Dilip Vengsarkar feels that multi-team events like the Asia Cup is not a ground for experimentations.

"The team is going ahead with their experiments. They picked Dinesh Karthik, but they haven't played him, and then they played Ravichandran Ashwin for the first time yesterday (Tuesday) against Sri Lanka. Obviously, the team management wants to give all the players a chance as they are trying to find their best XI for next month's World Cup. But then this event is also very important. The Asia Cup is a very big tournament," Vengsarkar told Khaleej Times.

"Winning matches in a tournament like this is very important for the morale of the team. Also, I think it's important to have the winning combination. As I said, the Asia Cup is a very big event. You can experiment maybe in a bilateral series, but the Asia Cup and the World Cup, these are major tournaments. In these tournaments, you need to win, that's very important," he added.

India will play Pakistan in their opening match of the T20 World Cup on October 23 at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.

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Prior to that, India will play three T20Is against Australia and South Africa at home.

India and South Africa will also play three ODIs after the conclusion of the T20Is.