Mumbai, September 12: Mumbai, September 12: The selectors on Monday (September 12) announced the India squad for the ICC T20 World Cup 2022, and the selection of players did not spring any major surprises.
To begin with they retained Rohit Sharma as captain and the experienced players like Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah found a berth in the squad of 15.
India will play their first match against Pakistan on October 23.
Bumrah, who was suffering from back injury and Harshal, who had a side strain, had done an intense rehabilitation programme at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) and the BCCI medical team has deemed them fit for the WC.
The two players, who missed out on World Cup berth were pacer Avesh Khan and leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi, who was pipped by senior off-spinner R Ashwin.
However, veteran pacer Mohammed Shami was back in the T20 scheme of things as he has been picked for the T20 series versus Australia and South Africa prior to the big event and is also among the four standbys who will travel Down Under.
The other three reserve players are Shreyas Iyer, Bishnoi and seamer Deepak Chahar. There were talks about Sanju Samson getting a looking in for the World Cup or at least for the home series against Australia and South Africa.
But the Kerala wicketkeeper batsman did not find space in any of the squads as Deepak Hooda was preferred over him.
Deepak Chahar was fit as indicated by his inclusion in the standbys but the selectors placed their faith on young Arshdeep Singh, who has been quite impressive in the IPL and later when he made his debut for India.
The management might just be looking to play him alongside Bumrah and want to form a death over combination.
India squad for T20 World Cup 2022: 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.
Standby players - Mohammed Shami, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Deepak Chahar.