Take a call on future of T20 team... now

A 50-over World Cup has gotten over recently, with the 20-over one less than six months away

IT'S WELL KNOWN that had Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and Rahul Dravid been available for the inaugural ICC World T20 in 2007, they would have gone to South Africa.

No selection panel would have had the courage to omit the 'Big 3' for a competition, and one would have never known what a new-look side under a fresh captain could achieve.

In India, it's the top stars who decide when they have had enough of a format or the game altogether.

Selectors are usually reluctant to take a call about the future of a big player or leave him out of a series, as a bad result or a few losses would make them the fall guy. A decision may have been taken on the basis of form or fitness or may be part of a medium or long-term vision for the team, but looking at the bigger picture is rare among the wise men of Indian cricket.

A 50-over World Cup has gotten over recently, with the 20-over one less than six months away. There's speculation over whether the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Jasprit Bumrah, and Mohammed Shami are part of India's T20 plans going forward. None of them have, as yet, said that they won't like to go.

Having been starved of ICC silverware for more than a decade, they would dearly love to get another crack at it in the Caribbean and the United States next summer.