NEW DELHI
\nVirat Kohli and skipper Rohit Sharma could be victims of wholesale change to India\u2019s Twenty20 team after the catastrophic World Cup semi-final defeat to England.
\nEngland romped to a 10-wicket victory on Thursday at the Adelaide Oval, chasing down the 169-run target with four overs to spare to set up a final on Sunday against India\u2019s arch-rivals Pakistan.
\nOpeners Alex Hales (86 not out) and Jos Buttler (80 not out) did the damage against a muted Indian bowling attack lacking both fire and fury.
\nCricket is by far the most popular sport in the world\u2019s second most populous country, but India have not won a global title since the 2013 champions Trophy and the painful wait goes on.
\nThe thrashing was met with disappointment, anger and demands for heads to roll.
\nReports on Friday said the T20 squad will start undergoing a major transition in the coming days, with prominent senior players including Rohit, Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin being gradually eased out.
\nKohli hit four half-centuries at this World Cup, including heroics to beat Pakistan in India\u2019s tournament opener, but at age 34 the superstar batsman is not seen as the future.
\n\u201cYou will not see most of the seniors playing T20 next year,\u201d the Press Trust of India quoted a source in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as saying.
\nThe India team could look very different the next time the T20 World Cup comes along, in the US and West Indies in 2024.
\n\u201cAbsolutely not the right time to talk about this stuff or think about this stuff right now,\u201d coach Rahul Dravid said in the aftermath of his team\u2019s beating when asked about the future of his senior players.
\nFormer cricketer Sunil Valson told AFP that India were outplayed in every aspect against a ruthless England.
\n\u201cThe selectors must sit down and see and work out a new combination,\u201d the former fast bowler said.
\nFormer India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh suggested India install a new head coach who has retired from playing more recently than Dravid, 49, and name Hardik Pandya as captain in place of Rohit.
\nBatting great Sunil Gavaskar said that the Indian selectors had already \u201csent the signal\u201d to senior players by picking the 29-year-old Pandya as skipper for an upcoming T20 series in New Zealand.
\n\u201cThere could be retirements, there are a lot of players in their mid-30s who might consider their future in international T20s,\u201d he said on air after the semi-final.
\nIndia are ranked the world\u2019s top T20 team but they were criticised for slow scoring in the powerplay, huffing and puffing their way to 38-1 off their first six overs, while England raced to 63 without loss.
\nVeteran journalist Rajdeep Sardesai said India needed new blood who were less conservative.
\n\u201cWe lost [the] game in the first 10 overs when we played timidly. Need a Gen next that bats at strike rate of 150-plus, and wicket-taking bowlers,\u201d he tweeted.
\nDravid acknowledged that the Indian cricket board\u2019s ban on players entering overseas T20 tournaments, such as Australia\u2019s Big Bash League (BBL), had hurt them.
\n\u201cA lot of our boys maybe do miss out on the opportunities of playing in a lot of these leagues,\u201d he said.
\nBut allowing them to do so would eviscerate longer forms of the Indian game, he added.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s right in the middle of our season, and with the kind of demand there would be for Indian players, if you allowed all the Indian players to play in these leagues, we would not have a domestic cricket.\u201d
\nHe added: \u201cOur domestic trophy, our Ranji trophy, would be finished, and that would mean Test cricket would be finished.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI Virat Kohli and skipper Rohit Sharma could be victims of wholesale change to India\u2019s Twenty20 team after the catastrophic World Cup semi-final defeat to England. England romped to a 10-wicket victory on Thursday at the Adelaide Oval, chasing down the 169-run target with four overs to spare to set up a final on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-294898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n