India boss Namibia to end T20 World Cup campaign as Shastri-Kohli partnership ends | Cricket News – Times of India

Only if India’s World Cup scheduling had been done the other way – starting with Namibia, Scotland and Afghanistan, and then followed by New Zealand and Pakistan. It’s one among the many thoughts that the Indian team will find themselves overburdened with as they now get ready to take the flight from UAE back home.
On the road since August last year, when they first travelled to UAE for the IPL in 2020, followed by the tour of Australia for a four Test series, four Tests against England at home, the first-leg of IPL, the World Test Championship final in June, the four Test matches on the tour of England, the second-leg of the IPL and eventually the T20 World Cup – it’s been a long and arduous 15 months for a majority of top India cricketers.
SCORECARD | AS IT HAPPENED
As coach Ravi Shastri mentioned after the match against Namibia on Monday, for the amount of time this team had ended up staying in a bio-secure bubble over the last year-and-a-half, the ‘bubble had to burst’ at some time.
Compare that to New Zealand who played the WTC final against India. Between December 2020 and June 2021, Kane Williamson’s team played just six Tests, four of those at home.
Compare that to Pakistan, who don’t participate in the IPL and saw their home series against New Zealand and England getting cancelled for reasons that are still being debated.

It’ll be top on the minds of cricketers who’ll be ruing another missed shot at an ICC trophy, especially considering that India were the hosts of this tournament.
On Monday evening, like they had trampled Afghanistan and Scotland last week, India came down heavily on Namibia too, winning the one-sided encounter by nine wickets. It was the third time in three matches – all back-to-back that either the Indian batsmen or the bowlers finished matches even before the opposition settled into the game.
Rohit Sharma, the new captain waiting to replace Virat Kohli immediately now – TOI had first reported this on September 13 – was in top form, leading the way for his team.

But all of this has happened too late after New Zealand had beaten Afghanistan on Sunday in a game India would’ve wanted the latter to win.
A fresh, cyclical journey is waiting to begin now with a new captain coming on board with a new coach. This script, we last saw, was written when India exited the 2007 ICC World Cup under Rahul Dravid’s captaincy in the first round itself. Dravid quit from his role a few months later, coach Greg Chappell quit immediately, and a new chapter began.
As India’s final encounter got over and both teams shook hands, it was one final goodbye from Shastri – the man who was this team’s backbone over the last four years. “What I want to do is give every player a chance. Then it’s also up to them to see what they make of it,” he had said in his initial months as coach after taking over for the second time in 2017. In doing so, he’s leaving behind a vast pool, one that Rahul Dravid will look to fine-tune going forward.