All Test players rested; Sanju Samson retained; Seamer all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy & pacer Harshit Rana may get cap; Spinner Varun Chakaravarthy returns to squad
Abhishek Sharma only specialist opener in the side; Exclusion of in-form openers Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan huge surprise
The national men’s cricket selection committee has picked India’s 15-member squad, led by Suryakumar Yadav, for the upcoming three-match IDFC FIRST Bank T20I series against Bangladesh. The series commences immediately after the ongoing two-Test series. The venues will be Gwalior (Oct 6, Sunday), New Delhi (Oct 9, Wednesday) and Hyderabad (Oct 12, Saturday).
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All the Test players have been rested in view of the upcoming 3-match Test home series against New Zealand starting mid-October and apparently to test the bench strength in T20Is.
IPL 2024’s fastest bowler Mayank Yadav has been rewarded with a national call-up for his pace and accuracy. He bowled consistently with 150 kmph-plus speeds in the IPL, his top speed being 156.7 kmph, and earned two player of the match awards before his campaign ended midway through the tournament due to an abdominal injury.
Despite two straight ducks in the last away series against Sri Lanka, wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson has been retained. The other wicketkeeper-batsman Jitesh Sharma also makes a comeback, though the first choice may still be Samson, basis his impressive performances in the Duleep Trophy in which he scored 196 runs at an average of 49 in his four innings.
The squad announcement also marks the return of so-called mystery spinner Varun Chakaravarthy, who last played for India in the T20 World Cup 2021.
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Big-hitting top order batsman Abhishek Sharma, who missed the Sri Lanka T20Is, also finds a place in the squad, along with Rinku Singh. He is the only specialist opening batsman in the squad with Yashaswi Jaiswal and Shubhman Gill, doing Test duty, being rested.
The exclusion from the squad of two other specialist in-form opening batsmen available for selection, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ishan Kishan, comes as a huge surprise and could leave the selectors and the team management open to criticism. Both put on an impressive show in the recently concluded Duleep Trophy campaign earlier this month and could have been deserving fits in the line-up.
Gaikwad, who scored 77* and 49 in the T20I series in Zimbabwe in July, smashed 232 runs in the Duleep Trophy for India C, laced with two fifties.
Ishan, who last donned the Indian jersey in December 2023 and later lost his BCCI central contract over not following a board mandate, returned to red-ball cricket with a century in the Buchi Babu tournament last month, before hammering 111 for India C in Duleep Trophy.
Among others in the squad who could make their international debut during the series are seam-bowling all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy and pacer Harshit Rana.
The squad is packed with allrounders, the others being Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag and Washington Sundar.
Leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi also features in the 15-member squad. Arshdeep Singh will lead the pace bowling attack with Mayank Yadav and Harshit Rana.
