India needs to have a rotation plan for the players

[zen]

Say you have two cars - an Audi A6 and a Bentley Flying Spur (both sedans for apples to apples). B/w these two you will use your A6 as a daily driver and Flying Spur on key occasions. More often than not, you would not run down your  Flying Spur. With the amount of games across various formats + IPL being played, along with the fact that India has a large pool of players, BCCI needs to identify the difference b/w the A6s and Flying Spurs. 

 

• Flying Spurs: These are your special skills/unique players. Take Bumrah for example. Play him in tests matches and IPL mostly, along with a few important LOI series here and there. Another one is SDP (Hardik) as he is coming out of a major injury. Let him focus on IPL and ICC events at the moment. Considering the workload of Pant across 3 formats, may be he can focus on Tests, IPL, and ICC events. A tired Shami can also focus on tests + IPL + ICC events. Kohli (no longer the captain) too can now focus on tests + IPL + ICC events. 
• A6s: Here you have your workhorses, new players (or anyone who needs more international experience), and players in the last phase of their careers. Use and rotate these guys as much as you can. 

 

Using the right rotation policy, along with identifying key tournaments for select players, will help them to remain fresh (rather than go through motions in many series), relatively injury free, and motivated to fire in key series (as they would be mentally prepared to play in those series), and not allow the opposition to practise against them/work them out.  It is no longer about competition among players but looking at the big picture, having a long term strategy including the approach to cricket and style of play (do we want to move away from over relying on spinners, who are usually only effective in certain conditions in India, and develop a most conditions team), and so on.  

 

Cricket is constantly changing, therefore India will have to be proactive too! 

 

 

 

[Adamant]

Agree with everything except inclusion of Pandya in the "Flying spurs" category. 

 

He has had a 3 months break now, needs to play as much cricket as possible as soon as he regains fitness. 

 

He was dropped by the selectors, that should definitely ignite some fire in him.