India have named three squads for their upcoming all-format tour of South Africa. Here are the main talking points from the white-ball portion of the announcement.
India’s Test team has all the strength of an available squad, but this is not the case for the white-ball group. With the next World Cup looming four years after him, the ODI squad has clearly taken a backseat, and with the T20 World Cup looming, there are key absentees from this group as well.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have requested a break from the white-ball leg of the tour, according to the BCCI. Her continued absence from T20I cricketremains a point of discussion, although speculation about her future would have been at its peak had the BCCI not made this clear. >. Officially, Rohit is still the captain across all formats. Kohli is India’s biggest all-format star. He will end 2023 without featuring in either of his T20Is.
Each player is suited to this format, with Kohli facing strict scrutiny for his role as an anchor and his spin in the middle overs, and Rohit not being able to play in the Indian Premier League despite having an excellent international record. There is some doubt as to whether it is. The strength of India’s layer thickness is impressive. It remains to be seen whether they are quietly sidelined or will rejoin once the main event begins.
Furthermore, players who would definitely be the first choice in the Americas and the Caribbean are missing. Jasprit Bumrah, for example, is understandably used sparingly by India. Still, with no press conferences or announcements, it’s difficult to know who was rested and who was ruled out. KL Rahul is clearly not in the other two teams. Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Bishnoi and Jitesh Sharma are in the T20I squad but not in the ODI squad. The opposite is true for Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal and Sanju Samson.
Given India’s meager resources, it makes sense to give as many players a chance as possible. But some decisions still cause ripples. For example, it is strange that Yashasvi Jaiswal has been able to get the same starts in Tests and T20Is and yet has not found a place in the medium formats yet.
Part of this can be explained by India’s tight tour schedule, which includes a three-day Test warm-up session within the squad alongside the ODIs. It’s not just fringe Test players made available in ODIs, as there is still overlap between the teams and at least one of Shreyas Iyer and Rahul is almost certain to start in the series. .
In all reviews in this hierarchy, individual stories should not be ignored. Chahal has been ruled out of ODIs since January and was playing in the County Championship when the flame went out, but has now won a recall. Samson was a genius in the IPL and played here and there in T20Is, but he failed to shine and is now constantly ignored. Rink Singh, his typical T20I finisher, now gets a chance in the longer white-ball format.
India is always playing cricket somewhere, but these matches should be important. For ODIs, it’s a chance to gain experience at the venue for the next World Cup. For T20I, the time until the next World Cup flies by. There is a lot to learn about India and there is already a lot to learn about its mindset.
