India vs Zimbabwe 2016 - Five possible gains for the Indian team

#5 The much-needed pacer:

Over the past few years, no pacer, absolutely NO ONE, has been able to nail down a permanent spot in India’s one-day side. A great example is that just over a year ago, in the 50 overs world cup, our pace attack was – Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami, Mohit Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and we see none of the 4 in this squad for Zimbabwe, despite them all being fit as seen in the recently concluded IPL.

This time, the ones who’ve been given another chance to impress are Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaydev Unadkat, Jasprit Bumrah, Barinder Sran and Rishi Dhawan.

The fact that there are 5 pace options in the squad gives the captain a chance to rotate them well and try and give an opportunity to all of them to showcase their talent at some point in the series.

The front-runner: Has to be Jasprit Bumrah, after impressing one and all with his death overs bowling in Australia, in the T20 World Cup and in the IPL.

When the team is back to full strength, we can be sure that at least 8-9 players who are not on this tour will walk back into the team, so these 6 matches will serve as a God-sent opportunity for these fringe players to make a big statement and catapult themselves into the big league, to represent India against tougher oppositions in the years to come.

If a few of them can really grab it, we’ll be looking at a stronger team India for the future, as it’s the quality of a team’s bench strength that helps it stay at the top once it gets there!