New Delhi: Legendary Sri Lanka cricketer Kumar Sangakkara believes that every player in the Indian team has to be made aware that they have a good chance of playing in the ODI World Cup, to be held in October and November this year in India.
“Your best players have to play a lot of ODI cricket, the rest that are in support can be rotated around them, but everyone should know that they stand a fighting chance to be in that 15.”
“They must play enough ODI cricket, get enough cricket in their legs and bodies, to make sure they are fit, that they know how to play the ODI game in this year, and they are fluent and they play together as a team.”
“And that their ODI skill levels are at peak so they can go ahead and win the world cup, so that’s got to be their main target, irrespective of what happens around them,” said Sangakkara on ‘Road to World Cup Glory’ show on Star Sports.
Sangakkara, who captained Sri Lanka to being runners-up in the 2011 ODI World Cup in India, also believes that the current Indian think-tank has to get the workload of players managed so that they are at prime fitness during the global quadrennial event.
“I think T20 has impacted all formats including test cricket positively, but the real key is having your best players available to play for you in the World Cup. And you can’t sustain all your best players playing back-to-back cricket in every format and expect all of them to be fit and ready.”
“You have to really manage the workload, you can have squads of 20, 30 whatever you want but at the end of the day you got to identify very early what your core side is, what the core is going to be around which you build all the other players to add on.”
“Because if you take the Indian side, everyone knows what the core is, everyone knows who the most important players are and you have a strenuous season ahead. So, you got to be really smart about how you control the workload. And you have the IPL, you have all of the other cricket. But if it’s a one-day world cup year, that’s got to be the main focus.”
–IANS