Nasser Hussain is immensely impressed with India's long list of debutants that have arrived and made a mark instantaneously. Hussain's comments came after two most recent debutants in pacer Prasidh Krishna and all-rounder Krunal Pandya had a game to remember in the first ODI against England in Pune on Tuesday. Krunal struck a fifty – the fastest on ODI debut – while Krishna returned 4/54 as India won the contest by 66 runs.
"Every single debutant they bring in, puts in a performance… whether it’s Prasidh, Krunal Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan… the list is long," Hussain said on Sky Sports.
Earlier in the T20I leg, Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan made their India debuts, scoring fifties in their first outing as batsmen. Before that, during the Australian tour, debutants Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur scored half-centuries and took a three-wicket-haul each to contribute towards a famous win for India in Brisbane.
Hussain looked back at England's performance, believing they could have done with someone like Joe Root in the middle order to provide a sense of calmness to the batting. Chasing 318 to win, England were racing along at 135/0 in the 15th over before fall of wickets hurt their chase and the tourists eventually fell short. Hussain reckons Root, who was not named in England's ODI squad, would have been ideal in such a scenario.
"England will look at themselves – 135/0 in 14 overs and 2 balls chasing that score. Did they need to be a little bit smarter? How much did they miss Joe Root… just to come in and knock it around and before you look at it, Root often is 40 off 50 balls and has soaked up pressure," the former England captain added," Hussain added.
{{/usCountry}}"England will look at themselves – 135/0 in 14 overs and 2 balls chasing that score. Did they need to be a little bit smarter? How much did they miss Joe Root… just to come in and knock it around and before you look at it, Root often is 40 off 50 balls and has soaked up pressure," the former England captain added," Hussain added.
{{/usCountry}}England's ploy of going after he bowling from the beginning is a tactic that has given them fruitful results – including winning the 2019 World Cup. However, Hussain feels the think tank could have been a little more careful in deciphering such chases.
"England have this way of going hard… they showed in the last World Cup. There are times they can just sit in and be smart. You don’t win that low-scoring World Cup without having that capability, but I just don’t think they were smart enough today. Hardik Pandya probably wouldn’t have bowled and Kuldeep was really struggling," the former England captain pointed out.
"So they had effectively four and a half bowlers and you had to force Virat to bowl Hardik Pandya and they didn’t because they kept losing wickets and Kuldeep could just come on at the end when the game was already lost."