Asian Games: Umran Malik likely to replace injured Shivam Mavi in Ruturaj Gaikwad-led India squad

Add as a preferred source on Google

Umran Malik is likely to replace injured pacer Shivam Mavi in the Indian men's cricket team squad for the Asian Games 2023 which kicks off this month in Hangzhou. The nature of Shivam Mavi's injury is unknown.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) senior selection committee will be picking his replacement in the coming days. According to an Indian Express report, the selectors wanted to send Vidarbha pacer Yash Thakur with the Ruturaj Gaikwad-led team but the 24-year-old is also injured.

In this case, the selection committee is likely to pick Umran Malik as a replacement for Shivam Mavi who has played six T20Is for India. The players part of the Asian Games squad will gather at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for a short camp before leaving to China.

NCA head and former India batter VVS Laxman will be coaching the second string Indian team along with Sariaj Bahutule as bowling coach and Munish Bali as fielding coach.

India are set to field a second-string side as the senior players will be busy with the preparations for the ODI World Cup set to be held in India from October 5. Notably, the men's cricket event at the Asia Games kicks off from September 28, with the final on October 7, a day before Rohit Sharma-led ODI team kick off their World Cup campaign against Australia in Chennai.

The women's cricket event will kick off from September 19. By virtue of their ICC rankings in the T20I format, India will begin from the quarterfinal phase in both the categories. India is sending its men's cricket team for the first team at the Asian Games.

India squad for Asian Games 2023: Ruturaj Gaikwad (Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Shivam Dube, Prabhsimran Singh (wk)

Standby list of players: Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Sai Sudarsan.