T20 World Cup: There is a touch of worry, India need to stop experimenting, says Gavaskar

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has advised Team India to stop their experiments and end the discussion about 'workload management' in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup.

India lost to Sri Lanka by six wickets and dented their chances of making it to the Asia Cup final. A lot of permutations and combinations need to go their way and therefore India are more or less out of the tournament.

"It has not come about (sync) because you haven't had the same team playing. You get into a sync when the whole team is playing. You try to experiment, there is nothing wrong with that.

"There are always 3 or 4 places up for grabs in a team and in the process of trying to identify those players, you try to go in with different teams. What that did was obviously, you know, when other players come back into the team, the sync will take a longer time," Gavaskar said in an interview.

Gavaskar also urged India to play their full strength against Australia and South Africa at home to give the first-choice players enough game time under their belt ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup.

Following the ongoing Asia Cup, India are set to play three T20Is each against Australia and South Africa at home from Sept. 20 to Oct. 4 before flying Down Under for the T20 World Cup. The ICC event is scheduled to begin on Oct. 16 and will go on till Nov. 13.

Over the last few months, India have experimented with their team combinations as key players had been rested for bilateral series in the lead-up to the Asia Cup. The likes of Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah were rested for the tour of the West Indies and Zimbabwe in July-August.

Most of the first-choice players, including Rohit, were rested for the three ODIs in Zimbabwe as the Indian team management, led by head coach Rahul Dravid, prioritised workload management.

"I would have thought that prior to the Asia Cup, the tour of Zimbabwe was the one where the majority of the players who were going to play the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup should have been selected. Now, suddenly, you have got 4-5 guys coming in, guys who had done well in Zimbabwe are not in the XI, not even in the squad. So the sync will take time to come.

"Yes, there is a touch of worry. I am not overly worried, because we have got a few matches coming up at home before the T20 World Cup. There, I hope, no experiments will take place. You'll pick the squad that is going to go to Australia and play. Stop talking about workload and all that, when you are playing for India, there's no workload. You just got to get your best team out in the park for the coming matches in India," added Gavaskar.

"Now with the exit from the Asia Cup, you have got 2-3 days of extra rest. You take that rest and start getting together in Mohali for the Australia series," Gavaskar said further.