(Cricket news) The wounds of the disappointing World Cup semi-final loss against England are still fresh for team India. Since then India has won a T20I match against New Zealand under Hardik Pandya's captaincy. The BCCI have fired the selection committee and there are a lot of reports about changes in the T20I set-up which would include appointing Hardik Pandya as the T20I captain. Pandya has been talking a lot like a leader in this New Zealand tour. One of the biggest things he said was "I want more bowling options in the team".

What Pandya said is something the experts and fans have been talking about for a long time. Across formats India lack bowling options in their top order. Back in the day, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh used to all be pretty handy with the ball. Nowadays India don't have that luxury as the likes of KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, and Cheteshwar Pujara are not capable of bowling. Rohit and Virat used to be pretty handy with the ball but the pair haven't bowled in any significant games for a while. This is an issue that has been a problem for India in all formats of the game. 

In Test matches India have been persistent in playing 5 bowlers even if that means their batting is left short. That is exactly what happened in the South Africa Test series where India played Ravichandran Ashwin at number 7. The major reason for that is because none of the batters can bowl a few overs here and there. In ODIs and T20Is it is the same thing because if one bowler is having a bad day then the skipper doesn't have enough options to fall back on. England who recently won the T20I World Cup had as many as 8 bowling options with a deep batting line-up. 

Players like Deepak Hooda and Venkatesh Iyer have been in and around the international scene but none have got an extended run in the side. The new selection panel may look into that aspect of selecting more batters who can bowl a few overs. The other option would be for Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav to start bowling again but that seems unlikely. India has 2 years to prepare for the next T20 World Cup and a lot of things have to change in order to make India favorites again. 

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