Team India's head coach Ravi Shastri, who was awarded a second stint with the side earlier this week, confirmed India's new number four in ODIs.
Ravi Shastri was retained for the role of head coach with Team India after the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) selected him over other candidates, including Tom Moody and Mike Hesson.
Shastri has since talked to BCCI, which was his first reaction post the announcement.
"The reason why I came in here is the belief I had in this team, the belief that they could leave a legacy which very few teams have left behind which other teams going down will try and emulate.
"That is the desire. We are on track. There's always room for improvement and with youth coming around, we can be sure of exciting times in the near future," he said.
Now, in an exclusive interview with The Times Of India, Ravi Shastri broke silence on his future plans with the side, in which he also revealed the new number 4 of the team in the ODIs.
"One of the areas we concentrated on over the last two years was to blood as many youngsters as possible. Shreyas Iyer, for instance, he is going to stay at No. 4," Shastri said.
The number 4 position has been a long-standing issue for team India in ODIs, and continued to haunt the side during the 2019 World Cup. Iyer, who made a comeback after more than a year in the West Indies tour, showed great composure and discipline to hit half-centuries in the two innings he played in the ODIs.
"Bench strength is everything if we’re looking at things from a long-term perspective. That constant flow of fresh, young talent has to be there. Be it Rishabh or Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep, Hardik, Mayank, Shankar - they’re there, constantly raising their hands up. That kind of a pool does wonders when the only objective is to ensure you don’t end up with, let’s say, any kind of deadwood," Shastri told ToI.
