'Who's winning tournaments?': Two-time World Cup-winning captain takes swipe at India for not winning ICC trophies
Daren Sammy who is no stranger to World titles agreed that India have a wealth of talent but he did not forget to send a reminder of their empty trophy cabinet.
Even with the majority of their first-choice players missing, India field an XI capable of beating any team in the world. That's the depth of Indian cricket currently. Many believe that India are capable of picking two different teams of the same quality. One glance at the next generation of Indian cricketers Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar and While all of this is mostly true, equally true is the fact that despite all the talent at their disposal, India are without an ICC trophy for more than decade. In fact, they haven't won a multi-nation tournament since 2018. The last ICC tournament they won was the Champions Trophy in 2013 under MS Dhoni and their last multi-nation tournament came in the Nidahas Trophy in 2018.
This is not to suggest that India have not come close. They reached the finals of the 2014 T20 World Cup, the final of the ht2017 Champions Trophy and the final of two back-to-back Word Test Championships in 2021 and 2023.
Former West Indies all-rounder Daren Sammy who is no stranger to World titles agreed that India have a wealth of talent but he also did not forget to send a reminder of their empty trophy cabinet.
"When you the see the players they’ve been able to produce, Hardik Pandya, (Yashasvi) Jaiswal all the guys they produced over the years but you must also remember who’s winning the international tournaments," Sammy told journalist Vimal Kumar.
The two-time T20 World Cup-winning captain lauded India's domestic cricket structure for producing world-beating cricketers in every department.
"Like I said, Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Sanju Samson who didn’t play, he’s been performing. Hardik Pandya who’s young but he is seasoned in the team. Again, it speaks of the system they have that keeps producing these youngsters," Sammy added.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Mukesh Kumar and Tilak Varma are the Indian cricketers who made their debut in the ongoing West Indies tour. While all three of them delivered noteworthy performances, Sammy was particularly impressed with Jaiswal, who scored 171 in his debut Test.
"Jaiswal has 1800 runs in first-class cricket in nine matches, nine hundreds, and then he comes to Dominica in his debut game, and he looks like he belonged at the international level. That comes from the standard of first-class cricket in India that is allowing the youngsters, when they come in, to be ready for international cricket," Sammy said.
Jaiswal also made his T20I debut in the third match of the series but failed to make a mark but the left-hander is expected to come good sooner rather than later. He will get another opportunity in the fourth T20I in Florida on Saturday as India aim to make it 2-2 in the five-match series.
