AJC

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Joined May 2024

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I saw a tweet from Wisden India cricket journalist Sarah Waris and it echoes my thoughts on India’s 15 man 2024 T20 World Cup squad. The tweet is as follows. “This T20 World Cup was never being viewed as a competition that India needed to win. This WC was a desperate attempt for the stars to win an ICC Trophy.”

As an outsider (Australian national team supporter) who watches a fair amount of T20 cricket (Go the Sunrisers!), the inclusion and exclusion of certain individuals is quite baffling to me.

The only difference for India in their top 4 from the last two T20 WC’s is the inclusion of Yashasvi Jaiswal. Rohit Sharma has been made captain again despite underperforming in multiple editions of this tournament. From memory, his last good IPL season was also back in 2016. India’s lower middle order unit will most likely be the familiar trio of Rishabh Pant (struggles hitting spin, has limitations with his offside game and is suited to coming in at an entry point a number 3 bat would usually encounter), Hardik Pandya (better hitter of spin than pace, has spent the past couple of years batting higher up the order as a ‘glue’ for GT) and Ravindra Jadeja (not a power hitter by any stretch of the imagination and does not have a 360 game, strikes at under 130 in T20I’s and 96 in T20 WC’s). Shivam Dube has been included in the 15 man squad which is fully deserved. However, if he were to be in the XI that would mean that India would either have to rely on Hardik bowling a minimum of 3 overs a game (Pant 5, Shivam 6, Hardik 7), potentially playing Axar + Jaddu together, all three seamers at once or going to a Ro-Ko opening pair which invites opposition to squeeze with left arm spin from the jump. India have also only brought 3 seamers (two of which are out of form) and if the surfaces aren’t CPL-like that could very well much come to bite them.

For India to win this WC in my opinion, absolutely everything would need to go right for them and many things to go wrong with opposition sides.

Good luck India and may the best team win!

Are India selecting themselves out of T20 World Cup glory?

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