Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan made a massive statement ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024. He said that if he was the coach of the Indian team, he would have made it mandatory for batsmen to bowl.

Team India will head into the 2024 T20 World Cup with quite a few options this time. But there are no specialized batsmen who can bowl. There are all-rounders in Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja. But no one from above can contribute.

Since players like Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and others left, India has been struggling to find batsmen who can also contribute with the ball. This has been a big failure for the team and potentially one of the reasons for India’s problems in ICC tournaments.

On the other hand, some of the successful teams in Australia, England, Pakistan, South Africa and others have the luxury of players who can bat as well as bowl. This has been one of the main reasons for his success in tournaments.

Irfan Pathan emphasized the same that India needs to have batsmen who know how to bowl. He highlighted examples of English players in Liam Livingstone, Mooen Ali and Will Jacks. He also spoke about the kind of combination that India can have and while speaking to Star Sports, he explained:

“If I were the coach, I would make the rule that if you are a batsman, you have to bat and if we need an off-arm, you can’t do without bowling. Otherwise, you won’t be able to bat with your side arm. If we take the example of England, Livingstone, Moeen Ali and Will Jacks bowl. “They are bowling decently after four or five frontline bowlers.”

“We can make two combinations. Six bowlers where you can play Axar Patel. Another option is to have four frontline bowlers where you can expect Shivam Dube and Hardik Pandya to play.”

This problem can be solved to a large extent: Irfan Pandya explains how India can have batsmen who can bowl

Irfan Pathan further backed Yashasvi Jaiswal to bowl a few overs in the T20 World Cup 2024. He said that if the batsman can bowl at least one over in the game, then the pressure can be less on Hardik Pandya.

Irfan Pathan further spoke about the different batting positions for Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson. He suggested two different teams and, insisting on the same thing, explained:

“There is one more player if you play, Yashasvi Jaiswal regularly bowls in the nets but he is yet to play in the match. So, you don’t know what you’ll get. You can expect him to bowl at least one over in the T20 World Cup. If he bowls one and Hardik Pandya bowls at least three overs, then this problem can be solved to a large extent.

“In the US, you can afford to have an extra seamer, but when you go to the West Indies, you can have three spinners in your playing XI, two fast bowlers and all-rounders. You can have that combination. The good thing about this team is that you can have a team where Rishabh Pant is ideal in the starting XI and obviously he will be setting the order. And then you have Sanju Samson in the XI, but he has to improve the order.”

As per the warm-up match, Rishabh Pant seems to be the team’s starting goalkeeper. He scored 53 runs in the warm-up match.