Fans of India and New Zealand- the perennial bridesmaids- what do you expect from your teams?
From India- I would want them to embrace a new fearless brand and direction of cricket. I see they have identified a captain in Hardik Pandya. In the lead up to the WT2024, I would like to see a bit of experimentation at the top and the advent of hard hitting bits and pieces players at the bottom. The middle needs an anchor- whom I see in Iyer, for the time being. But he has to come good here.
For New Zealand- Much like India, they need to shed their conservatism. In the finals that NZ has played in the last few years, they dont seem to have had the body language of a side who was willing to boss. This has been missing from them arsenal for a long time. Briefly, under Nash, McCullum and Cairns(whenever he led) they seemed a different unit. One change, I thought they would look at- Tim Southee- dont see him hanging around until the next edition and they ought to have moved on. Perhaps, it might have been a tad too much after the twin blows of Guptill and Boult.