Our goal is to build a strong player base over the next 18 months: Doeschate | the news

For assistant coach Ryan ten Douchet, keeping players in a psychologically safe zone is a non-negotiable in the team management's efforts to build a strong core ahead of two crucial years in Indian cricket.

Meanwhile, India will play a number of marquee events, including the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series against Australia in November, next year's ICC Champions Trophy and a possible appearance in the World Test Championship final in June .

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Yes, we want to build a strong core of players. With the Champions Trophy, Asia Cup (2025) and World Cup (T20 WC 2026) approaching, we want to know where everyone stands in Indian cricket and it's good to see the depth we have, Duschet told the media here. A day before the third T20 against Bangladesh.

Doeschate then dives into the deeper meaning of having a wider pool of players to choose from.

There are guys who can play different roles depending on where we play, which is very important for balance. You see someone like Ryan (Parag) who hasn't got a lot right in this series.

“We saw someone (Nitish Kumar Reddy) who can both finish and bat at 4-5. So, we are trying to fit these pieces together as much as possible in this bilateral series,” he added.

But for this, Douchet emphasized on keeping the cricketers mentally in the right zone.

We are pushing the limits of what we can do as a team. “Obviously we have the standards to do that, and it's about giving players the confidence that they're in a safe place, that it's not going well, it's OK,” he said.

It's about giving them the freedom to go out there and do that, and they're definitely good enough to do that. So, it's just a mentality of scoring and hitting every ball out of 120 balls.

Former Netherlands all-rounder Sanju used Samson as an example as the Kerala man had two dismal matches in Gwalior and New Delhi.

If you look at the first two games, Sanju, in the first game in Gwalior, it was easy for him to finish and get fifty. But you can see that he's trying to push the boundaries and it's pretty consistent with the message.

“We want the boys to develop their own game, we want to take cricket forward at this point and we want to be ready for the big defining moments that are coming in the next 18 months,” he elaborated.

In fact, he hinted that Samson would get another chance to prove himself in the third T20I.

We try to expose as many boys as possible to the international experience. We want to give Sanju another chance, so there are options, and of course the plan was to win the series and then try some new faces for the last game, he said.

Doeschate suggests that India will continue the new trend of frontline batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav or Rinku Singh supporting the top bowlers.

You get to a position where you don't want a lot of pitchers, but the way the at-bats are going, it gives us an opportunity to pick another specialist pitcher when we think the difference is big enough. But it gives the captain a lot of options.

It's very rare for five or even six players to be successful in one day, so it's good to have an alternative. Ideally, you want them to bowl a little more, but someone like Hardik, who didn't play in the last match, is a testament to the depth of the bowling team, he suggested.

5-0 sweep in sight

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Amid all these details, Duschet has not lost sight of the fact that there is a match to be won against Bangladesh here on Saturday.

Gauti's message (seriously) is the importance of every game you play for your country and always putting yourself under pressure, so there's absolutely nothing to say about not focusing on that for tomorrow. We want to win and complete the series 5-0 (2-0 in Tests and 3-0 in T20Is), he added.

Doeschate said a relatively low-intensity series offers the added benefit of learning more about fringe players.

Jitesh (Sharma) and the guys who didn't play, Tilak (Burma) and Harshit, keeping them around and seeing how they work and what strings we have to pull to get the best out of them because they're going to be important over the next 18 months, he signed.

(Only the title and image for this report may have been reworked by the Business Standards team; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a distributed feed.)