The All India Senior Selection Committee met on Wednesday to select the squad for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to be held in the United Arab Emirates and Oman from October 17 to November 14 by the BCCI.
In a surprising move, R Ashwin He has been included in the squad which will start their campaign in the showpiece event against arch-rivals Pakistan. He last played T20I against West Indies in July 2017. Yuzvendra Chahal missed out as MS Dhoni will be the mentor of the team.
“As far as MS Dhoni is concerned, I spoke to him when I was in Dubai, so he was fine with the decision and he only agreed to be the team mentor for the T20 World Cup. I spoke to my colleagues. Also discussed this particular issue together, they are all on the same page,” Shah said during a virtual press conference.
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“I spoke to the captain and vice-captain as well as head coach Ravi Shastri, they are all on the same page so we came to a conclusion,” he added.
Team India’s chief selector Chetan Sharma also explained the reason why no left-arm fast bowler was named in the team.
“Every time the selectors have one thing in their mind that you need variety, but at the end of the day, wickets will be slow in UAE, so the selectors decided on three fast bowlers with Hardik Pandya as the fourth fast bowler. Even if we wanted a left-arm fast bowler, we would not have included him in the team.
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“T Natarajan was discussed but he hasn’t played cricket for a long time, he is on the injury list and that’s why we stick to the main guys who are our strike bowlers,” he added.
India team: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (VC), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rahul Chahar, Varun, Mohammed Shami, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishan Kishan.
Standby Player: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur.
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