After a gutted campaign in the concluded ODI World Cup, India has now announced the squad for the upcoming T20I series against Australia which is seen missing some experienced names as expected.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI) was quick enough to announce the squad on Monday for a five-match t20i series starting at Visakhapatnam on November 23.
The national selectors have made clear their intention about the team by investing more in young players and giving the leadership task to Suryakumar Yadav.
Only players like Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, and Prasidh Krishna are the ones who have been included in the t20i squad just directly from the World Cup squad. However, middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer will also join the squad for the last two games which are scheduled to take place at Raipur and Bengaluru respectively. He will take the vice-captain charge from the Ruturaj Gaikwad after joining the squad.
It is massively good news for left-handed all-rounder Axar Patel as well who has lately returned to competitive cricket last month for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He also played two matches against Punjab and Railways.
VVS Laxman has been appointed as the head coach of the Indian Team for this series.
Suryakumar Yadav (Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vice-captain), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.
The younger players in the team have already played a significant amount of top-tier cricket as they were included in the Indian squad for the Asian Games in Hangzhou and the three-match T20I series against Ireland.
A PTI report claims that the players’ selection was primarily based on the players’ performance in two consecutive IPL seasons, which is why the players on the squad have it listed against their names.
Nevertheless, a few players who competed in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, including experienced pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and batters Riyan Parag and Abhishek Sharma, were unable to secure a spot in the team.
Although Bhuvneshwar had taken 16 wickets at an economy rate of 5.84 from seven SMAT matches, the selectors believed that his pace had significantly decreased, averaging barely 130 kmph.
Following their outstanding performance in the SMAT, Parag and Sharma were in the running. Parag, an Assamese player, scored the most runs in the tournament with 510 from 10 games, including seven fifty-score innings with an 182 strike rate.
The second-highest run scorer in the SMAT with 485 runs from 10 matches—two hundred and three fifties with a 192 strike rate—was Punjab left-hander Sharma, who is also a decent left-arm spinner.
However, the authorities believed that even if these two players had potential, they needed to be more reliable in the IPL to be considered for a spot on the national team.
Even though Sanju Samson was aiming to make the team, the Kerala batsmen’s absence stood out. The selectors have also disregarded Yuzvendra Chahal.
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