Asia Cup is not a place for experimentation: Dilip Vengsarkar

Vengsarkar told Khaleej Times: "The team is going ahead with their experiments. They picked Dinesh Karthik, but they haven’t played him, and then they played Ravichandran Ashwin for the first time yesterday (Tuesday) against Sri Lanka. Obviously, the team management wants to give all the players a chance as they are trying to find their best XI for next month’s World Cup."

"But then this event is also very important. The Asia Cup is a very big tournament. Winning matches in a tournament like this is very important for the morale of the team," he said.

"Also, I think it’s important to have the winning combination. As I said, the Asia Cup is a very big event. You can experiment maybe in a bilateral series, but the Asia Cups and the World Cup, these are major tournaments. In these tournaments, you need to win, that’s very important," he said.

He said the Indian team has 'potential'.

" They have a lot of match-winners. I am happy to see Suryakumar Yadav playing some big innings. Virat Kohli is getting into his form. Rohit Sharma played a fantastic knock in the last match. Kohli playing well in three of the four innings is definitely a big positive. He is one of our match-winners," he said.

"He is a world-class player. For him to get into form is very important going into the World Cup. He will be one of India’s key players in Australia. Then the young Arshdeep Singh bowled very well. It’s good to see young cricketers coming up and performing at this level. Arshdeep is a very talented player. He is short on experience, but having said that, he bowled brilliantly in the death overs. It’s a good sign because he is playing these high-pressure games. He has really come of age in that sense," he said.

India exited from the Super 4 stage of the ongoing Asia Cup.