The Board for Control of Cricket in India on Sunday announced the squad for the South Africa T20 series which will begin on June 9.
KL Rahul has been named the skipper for the series while Rishabh Pant has named as Rahul’s deputy. The biggest talking point from the squad is the return of Dinesh Karthik and Hardik Pandya, both of whom have impressed in the on-going IPL 2022. Meanwhile, the likes of Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Hooda and Ishan Kishan have been retained from the squad that played against Sri Lanka. It can be noted that V Iyer and Kishan did not have the best of IPL seasons this time around.
The two names to be included in India’s squad for the first time are Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh, both of whom have done remarkably well this IPL. Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah have been rested from the series.
The exclusion of Sanju Samson and Rahul Tripathi has also sparked a debate. Tripathi scored 413 runs at an average of 37 and a strike rate of 158 in IPL 2022. Samson meanwhile, has scored 374 runs at an average of 29 and rate of 147 in the league games. Both the batsmen have done well and their exclusion from the squad has surprised many, especially when those who did not perform well in IPL 2022 have been included.
Full T20I Squad – KL Rahul (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (VC) (wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Y Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, R Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik
