'Remember who's winning international tournaments': Darren Sammy on India's ICC trophy drought

Although Team India has managed to stay among the top rankings across formats in the last decade, they have always returned empty-handed from ICC outings for very long. The last ICC title India won was in 2013, the Champions Trophy under Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Ever since, India have made the semi-finals of the ODI World Cup in 2015 and 2019 and the finals in the World Test Championship in 2021 and 2023 but faltered at the big matches. This has earned the Men in Blue loads of criticism from all quarters. And former West Indies captain Daren Sammy, who led the Caribbean side to the 2012 and 2016 T20 World Cup titles, has also joined the critics in drawing attention towards India’s apparent Achilles heel. Sammy was talking to journalist Vimal Kumar on his YouTube channel about the young players India’s produced in recent years when he brought up the ICC titles. “When you the see the players they’ve been able to produce, Hardik Pandya, (Yashasvi) Jaiswal all the guys they produced over the years but you must also remember who’s winning the international tournaments," quipped Sammy. “Like I said, Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Sanju Samson who didn’t play, he’s been performing. Hardik Pandya who’s young but he is seasoned in the team. Again, it speaks of the system they have that keeps producing these youngsters," he added. He underscored Yashasvi Jaiswal particularly to assert that his form spoke to his readiness for the international level. “Jaiswal has 1800 runs in First Class cricket in nine matches, nine hundreds and then he comes to Dominica in his debut game and he looks like he belonged at the international level. That comes from the standard of First Class cricket in India that is allowing the youngsters that when they come in to be ready for international cricket," stated Sammy.