Nasser Hussain says India need a captain like Eoin Morgan

Former England captain, Nasser Hussain has said that India need a captain like Eoin Morgan.

Morgan epitomised a brave and carefree brand of cricket that helped England win the World Cup in 2019.

Hussain believes that this kind of captain would set them free in T20 cricket.

“India is still a massive force. You look at their team on paper.”, Hussain said.

“You look at the players they could’ve picked. It’s a bit like England. There were a couple of blows like most sides had, like Jasprit Bumrah and Jadeja being injured.”

“But, when it comes to knockout games, the approach needs to change. There’s talk about younger guns coming through but it’s not the players, but the mindset.”

“They need an Eoin Morgan-type character to go in there and say play carefree cricket.”

“20 overs, go and smash it as much as you can for 20 overs. Play like you play in the IPL and smash it.”

“Do it for India and don’t worry about the noise. Shut out the noise and we’ll back if you are bowled out for 120.”

Hussain also pointed out that Rohit Sharma and Dravid did manage to change the mindset in bilateral series but the moment it came to an ICC knockout, they fell back to their old conservative style of batting.

“I had even asked Ravi Shastri, who was the coach of that team (in the last T20 World Cup) and he said ‘we played pretty timid cricket’ with the bat and that’s got to change.”

“Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid came to change that, and they did it in bilaterals, they did it against England.”

“Suryakumar Yadav smashed it around Trent Bridge, got a brilliant 115 (117 off 55). But then, you’ve got to take it into a game, where you know that if you lose, the sort of criticism you are going to get.”

“The first time they took that into a knockout game, they slid back into their old style of being 66 for 2 in 10 overs.”

That’s food for thought for Indian fans.