On Monday, September 12, the Senior Selection Committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced India’s squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup, which begins in October in Australia. The team includes the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, while Mohammed Shami has been kept on standby.
The selection committee’s picks have raised several questions. We discuss some of them here.
Why is Mohammed Shami not in the squad?
Mohammed Shami has been one of the best bowlers on bouncy pitches, and you won’t get pitches bouncier than they are in Australia. Shami has played only one T20I in Australia and none in South Africa, but he has an impressive record in ODIs, another white ball format. He has taken 30 wickets in a total of 17 matches played together in Australia (14 matches – 22 wickets) and South Africa (3 matches – 9 wickets).
Keeping Shami in the stand-bys and Bhuvenshwar Kumar (mostly a swing bowler) in the main squad makes very little sense even in current form and how Bhuvi performed against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup 2022.
Why go with three spinners to Australia?
Australian wickets mean bounce. Spin works well only in Sydney. If there are two leg spinners in the side, it still could be digestible to have an off-break bowler who can actually bat in the squad. The off-break bowler who can bat is Deepak Hooda. That makes one wonder about the inclusion of Ravichandran Ashwin in the squad.
Taking Axar Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal to the World Cup is fine, as any of them could play with Hooda and Hardik Pandya bowling to finish the fifth bowler’s quota. Instead of Ashwin, Shami could have been easily accommodated.
Where will KL Rahul bat if you have both DK and Pant in the playing eleven?
KL Rahul has been picked in the squad as the vice-captain, and he would probably open the innings. In that case, the problem of having Virat Kohli and KL Rahul bat together would arise. They both take time to settle, pushing the Indian run rate down.
In all likelihood, Kohli and Rohit Sharma should bat at the top, with Suryakumar Yadav coming in at number three, Deepak Hooda at four, Rishabh Pant/ KL Rahul at five and then the two finishers in Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik.
There is no use in getting Karthik to Australia and keeping him on the bench. If warming the bench was the only use of the second wicket-keeper, Ishan Kishan or Sanju Samson, who are young and have years left ahead of them in terms of career, could have been chosen. If Karthik is there, he must play, and if he plays, Rahul would have to fight with Pant for the wicket-keeper and middle-order slot.
Will this team be the world-beater?
To predict whether a team will be a world-beater or not as of now is a tough job. MS Dhoni won with a team that did not seem like a world-beater in the entire tournament until it made the final in the 2007 T20 World Cup. However, that was a team of young and aspiring players who had to prove themselves to the world. This one has players with high salaries in IPL, with already established careers and almost nothing to prove to anyone. There is one thing that none of the players apart from skipper Rohit has achieved, a T20 World Cup title. Maybe that will push them to become the world beater.
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