5 strategic problems that the Indian T20I team needs to solve now

#3 Lack of maverick power-hitters

Yuvraj is yet to light it up in the T20s

It is no secret that any good T20 team can always boast of at least a couple of dangerous power hitters who can strike fear in the heart of the opposition.

England have Jos Butler and Ben Stokes. West Indies have a team full of them who come out swinging from the very first ball. No wonder they were the best two teams in the World T20 2016.

When the Indian T20 team dominated oppositions in the 2007 World T20, they had the likes of Sehwag, Yuvraj and Dhoni. Sehwag has retired; the other two are still around albeit the fact that their power-hitting capabilities have steadily declined.

The problem with the Indian team now is that they have too many beautiful batsmen with technically correct finesse who would be more comfortable playing a cover drive or a flick through square-leg. Yuvraj and Dhoni who fall in that category; even the new age batsmen who are emerging now likes Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav are not much different.

When you have the flair to hit good shots, you play street-smart cricket to get a run-a-ball 50 and then go after the opposition. Which is what most India batsmen do nowadays and are tremendously successful at it in ODI cricket.

But in T20 cricket, no one has the time to play himself in -- you need to launch an assault from the time you come in. How many of the current Indian batsmen are comfortable of improvising to play a reverse sweep or scoop? Very few.

Despite years of the IPL, why haven't we produced a Chris Gayle? Or even the next MS Dhoni or a batsman like Yusuf Pathan for that matter?

The question has no easy answers. But until we find a few, we will surely lag behind in the shortest format of the game.