For assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, keeping players in a mentally safe zone is a non-negotiable in the team management’s effort to “build a strong core” ahead of two important years in Indian cricket. In this period, India will play several marquee events including the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series against Australia in November, next year’s ICC Champions Trophy and a possible appearance in the World Test Championship Final in June. “Yes, we want to build a strong core of players. With the Champions Trophy, Asia Cup (2025) and the World Cup (T20 WC 2026) coming up, we want to know where everyone stands in Indian cricket, and it’s good to see the depth that we have,” Doeschate told media on the eve of the third T20I against Bangladesh.
Doeschate then dived into the deeper meaning of having a wider pool of players to select from.
“There are guys who can fill multiple roles which are so important for balance depending on where we play. You look at someone like Riyan (Parag) who hasn’t batted much in this series.
“We’ve seen someone (Nitish Kumar Reddy) who can bat at 4-5 as well as being a finisher. So, it’s trying to fit as many of those pieces together as we can in these bilateral series,” he added.
But for this, Doeschate emphasised that the cricketers should be kept in the right zone mentally.
“We’re trying to push the limits of what we can do as a team. We’ve obviously got the quality to do it, and then it’s about giving the players the belief that they’re in a safe space, to know that if it’s not going right, it’s okay,” he said.
“It’s just about giving them the freedom that they can go out there and do it and they’re certainly good enough to do it. So, it’s just the mindset of looking to score and looking to hit every single ball in the 120 balls.” The former Netherlands all-rounder used Sanju Samson as a case in point, as the Kerala man had two underwhelming outings in Gwalior and New Delhi.
“If you look back at the first two games, Sanju, getting a quick start in the first game in Gwalior would have been easy for him to knock it around and get a fifty. But you can see he’s trying to push the boundary, and the messaging has been pretty consistent with that.
“We want guys to expand their own game, we want to move cricket forward like it is going at the time, and we want to be prepared for the big crunch moments that are coming up in the next 18 months,” he detailed.
In effect, he was indicating that Samson will in all likelihood get another chance to prove his worth in the third T20I.
“We try to expose as many guys as we can to international experience. We want to give Sanju another chance, so there are options, and certainly the plan originally was to win the series, and then try a few new faces for the last game,” he said.
Doeschate suggested that India will continue with the new trend of frontline batters like Suryakumar Yadav or Rinku Singh turning their arms for a couple of overs to support the main bowlers.
“You get to the position where you don’t want too many bowlers, but with the way the batting’s been going, it does give us a chance to pick another specialist bowler, when we think the difference is big enough to do that. But it gives the captain so many options.
“It’s very rare that all five bowlers or even six bowlers are going to go well on a day, so it’s nice to have an option. Ideally, you want them to bowl a little bit more, but someone like Hardik not bowling in the last game, is a testament to the depth in the bowling team,” he offered.
5-0 sweep in sight
Among all these finer details, Doeschate did not lose sight of the fact that there is a match to win against Bangladesh on Saturday.
“The messaging from Gauti (Gambhir), the importance of each game playing for your country and also putting yourself under pressure every time, so there’s absolutely no talk about not putting that as the focus for tomorrow. We want to win and complete the 5-0 (2-0 in Tests, and 3-0 in T20Is) series,” he added.
Doeschate said such relatively lower intensity series offers the additional benefit of getting to know more about fringe players.
“Jitesh (Sharma) and the guys that haven’t played, Tilak (Varma) and Harshit, just having them around and seeing how they operate and what strings we need to pull to get the best out of them because they are going to be important in the next 18-month period,” he signed off.
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