TEST OF THE NEW TEMPLATE

After Dhoni's Formula, Followed By The Kohli-Shastri Template, The Indian Team Is Now Trying To Find The Winning Mantra Under Dravid-Rohit Duo

- Dwaipayan Datta

The Indian approach in T20 has gone through constant evolution over the last 15 years. While the first 10 years was about MS Dhoni's template formulated at the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) laboratory and executed with degrees of success and failure for India, Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri looked to bring in their own brand of daredevilry to the format.

While Dhoni's tactic was always about stretching the game as far as possible and stifling the opposition in a pressure-cooker situation, Kohli preferred an in-your-face attacking approach from Ball 1. During his partnership with Shastri, we saw the influx of specialists - be it out-and-out pace or wrist spin.

It worked for a while but went bust in UAE last year as India failed to go beyond the group stage, which prompted a regime change. The coach-captain duo of Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma took charge and they had one full year to forge a fresh template to bring back the T20 World Cup which India won in 2007.