Gautam Gambhir is starting his career as the coach of the Indian national team with a tour of Sri Lanka where the team will play dual white-ball series which will include 3 T20 Internationals and 3 One Day Internationals. Last week the chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar has announced the squads for both the series and since then lots of discussion and debated are ongoing among the fans in social media. Let’s look into some of the key aspects of the squad.
The main point of debate is obviously regarding the players who was not selected. However, it has be accepted that currently India is one of the strongest cricketing nations at this point and thanks to IPL, there is no shortage of the talent in the country. Hence, selecting a 16-member squad will always be controversial as some top players may get missing. For example, only 9 members from India’s triumphant squad which won 4-1 at Zimbabwe made the cut for the T20I team for the Sri Lanka tour.
Let’s first look into the squad selected for the T20 Internationals:
Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Ꮪhubman Gill (vice-capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj
This is obviously a new look side from the T20 World Cup post the retirement of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja from T20 Internationals. This includes 9 members from that group including 6 of those returning after missing the Zimbabwe tour. The biggest name in the squad is obviously Suryakumar Yadav, who was appointed as the new permanent captain for India’s T20 Internationals team. Yadav made his India debut less than 3.5 years ago at the age of 30 but already established himself as one of the World’s best T20 batter and now got rewarded with captaincy of a World Cup winning team. He had domestic captaincy experience and also captained India to a 4-1 T20I series win against a young Australian team, and it will be interesting to see his style of captaincy at the ground and how he managed his troops.
There was a debate regarding whether Hardik Pandya, the team’s vice-captain in the T20 World Cup should be selected as captain but eventually, the selectors opted against it. It will be interesting to see Mumbai Indians’ retention strategy before the next auction as both Yadav and Pandya currently plays for them with the latter being the captain.
The other interesting debate regarding the T20 team selection is the non-selection of both Ruturaj Gaikwad and Abhishek Sharma. Last year Ruturaj took a young Indian team in the Asian Games as captain and also led them to Gold. Gaikwad also scored a memorable century against Australia and can boast of an average of nearly 40 and strike rate above 140 from 23 T20I’s. Although India had too many openers now and in T20 Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal are expected to be the chosen duo for years to come, Gaikwad would love to be in the mix as back up. Abhishek is much junior than Gaikwad but after enjoying a brilliant IPL and after scoring a century in just his second T20I, he also would like to be part of the mix.
There is not much question regarding the rest of the T20 squad. Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson are the two designated wicketkeepers and they will fight it out with Riyan Parag for the middle order spots. Rinku Singh will be the designated finisher along with other key all-rounders like Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar. It will be also interesting to see, how many all-rounders India include in their first XI, keeping in mind the team balance.
Bishnoi will continue to be the sole frontline spinner in the squad as Kuldeep Yadav was not picked for the T20 games. The fast bowling group looks interesting with two left-arm pacers in Arshdeep Singh and Khaleel Ahmed who will be joined by Mohammad Siraj and the leader of the pace attack.
India’s ODI squad includes the below players:
Rohit Sharma (capt), Ꮪhubman Gill (vice-capt), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Riyan Parag, Axar Patel, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana.
This squad gives a slightly stable look with Rohit and Virat back. But interestingly, both Yadav and Pandya are not part of it. Gambhir is a supporter of different captains for different formats for a long time and it looks like as coach he would like to have his players specialize in specific formats. Although, one player who looks to be considered for all formats is Shubman Gill. Who, after leading India in Zimbabwe, now becomes India’s vice-captain in both the white-ball formats.
Gill will open with Rohit as Jaiswal missed out and need to wait for his ODI debut. The middle order will include Kohli and Pant along with some of India’s 50-over World Cup stars like Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul. Rahul can also compete with Pant for the wicketkeeper’s spot as Sanju Samson was not picked despite scoring a century in his last ODI at South Africa. Likewise Rinku Singh also missed out on a ODI berth but Riyan Parag got rewarded for his success in the domestic List-A tournaments and ill compete with Dube for a lower-middle order role.
Kuldeep will join the spin all-rounders Patel and Sundar to form the spin bowling attack. The pace bowling attacks look similar to the T20I’s as all three of Siraj, Arshdeep and Khaleel will be there and will be joined by the newcomer Harshit Rana. Rana was also part of the touring party in Zimbabwe but did not get a chance to play. He also delivered strong performance in last year’s Vijay Hazare Trophy and in IPL when he picked up 19 wickets under the mentorship of Gambhir in a victorious campaign for KKR.
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