Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel Back in squad for T20 World Cup; Mohammed Shami is ‘Stand-By’!

The All- India Senior Selection Committee for Cricket met yesterday (September 12th) to choose the players for the Indian squad who would represent India in the T20 World Cup, which would kick start in October.

The pressure would have been immense as the team had fared poorly in the Asia Cup, but the cushion did exist with a few players returning.

Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel received a red carpet welcome and are now back into the folds to strengthen the pace attack. Virat Kohli made it easy for the selectors after a good campaign in the Asia Cup. The two wicket-keeper experiments persist with Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik, and Ishan Kishan loses his place. Bhuvanesh Kumar got a surprise nod despite his mixed bag performance at the Asia Cup. 

The real shock came with Mohammed Shami sidelined. He is a part of the reserves but outside the main 15 and Shreyas Iyer. Shami has been good at Australian wickets, capturing 31 in eight matches across all formats. However, he is occasionally aggressive with the bat, and keeping him out in the cold has drawn plenty of criticism from senior cricketers like Srikanth Azharuddin and more. 

However, Shami finds a place in the two upcoming T20 series against Australia and South Africa. These matches would determine the eleven for the first encounter against arch-rivals Pakistan on October 23rd. 

The 15-member squad team.

India squad for ICC T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh.