“I don’t want to elaborate on it, I am sure that the captains of the opposition teams are listening to this,” said Rohit in Mumbai. “Of course I wanted four spinners. We have played a lot of cricket there [Caribbean]. We know what the conditions are like. As the morning starts at 10-10.30am, there is a small technical element involved in this.”
India have named left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav, legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal and left-arm spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel in their provisional 15, leaving room for only three fast bowlers and no place for Rinku Singh . Chahal was not part of India’s T20I squads in their recent series – in South Africa in December and Afghanistan at home in January – and was picked after his good form in IPL 2024.
“Maybe when I do the first press conference [upon landing], I will give more details,” said Rohit about the selection of four spinners. “The reason for the four spinners is this, which I will not say publicly. But I wanted four spinners for sure. With two spinners who are all-rounders who can bat, Axar and Jadeja, and two attacking spinners – Kuldeep and Chahal – it gives you balance in the spin department. Based on the composition of the opposition team we can decide what we want to play.”
Dube was chosen as a middle power
While Rohit would not be drawn into discussing Virat Kohli as his opening partner in place of Yashasvi Jaiswal, he emphasized the need for more strength in the middle order, which led to the selection of Shivam Dube.
“One thing we were looking at was batting in the middle-overs,” said Rohit. “The top-order batting was good, it wasn’t bad, but there are options. Even in the middle overs we wanted someone to play that role where he can play freely without worrying about who is bowling and who is not. We chose Shivam Dube based on the IPL and a few games before the – IPL.”
Dube has been in blistering form for Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2024, his 350 runs coming at a strike rate of 171.56, and he is the third-highest run-scorer this season. He also became the top run-scorer in the T20I series against Afghanistan in January, with 124 runs in three innings at a strike rate of 158.97. Rohit also expects Dube to contribute with the ball, if needed, even though he bowled just one over in his first ten matches in IPL 2024.
“I know that Shivam did not bowl a single over, but he is a seasoned cricketer who bowls a lot of overs in red ball cricket,” said Rohit. “To be honest if we need Shivam to bowl a few overs, he will bowl a few overs. Hardik too, has always bowled in the IPL. Whenever required, he comes and bowls. Like Ajit [Agarkar] he said, he came and played all the games, smart, no problems.”
Why KL Rahul missed out
India’s decision to pick Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson as the two wicketkeepers ahead of KL Rahul was all about their ability to bat in the middle order.
“KL is a formidable player, we all know that,” said chairman of selectors Agarkar. “The thing is we were looking for guys who hit in the middle, and at the moment KL is hitting at the top.”
When Samson was shown batting at number 3 for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2024, Agarkar said: “We feel that Sanju has the ability to go down the order, if necessary, Rishabh was batting at 5-6. That was a lot of thinking, in terms of gaps what we needed now.
After suffering a serious car accident in December 2022, Pant made a successful comeback in IPL 2024, scoring 398 runs in his first 11 innings for Delhi Capitals at a strike rate of 158.56, showing that his wicket-keeping skills are back to top form. . Samson has 385 runs in nine innings for the Royals, with a strike rate of 161.08.
‘Rinku’s release is one of the hardest calls’
Rinku Singh’s exclusion was the “toughest” decision the Indian selectors had to make while selecting the team.
“He [Rinku] he did nothing wrong, neither did Shubman Gill. Only combinations,” said Agarkar. “We are not sure of the conditions we will get [in USA] and we wanted to have enough [bowling] to choose from.
“We’ve had a couple of stints to give Rohit more options, I don’t think it’s anything to do with Rinku. It’s not his fault he missed out, it’s more than 15 we felt we needed, we’ve got two very good keepers. batsmen, we’ll have another batter sitting out. We’ve got to have another bowling option, but he’s still one of the go-to catchers That’s how close he was, but we can only take 15.
Rinku has played 15 T20Is for India, scoring 356 runs at a strike rate of 176.23. However, he had a quiet IPL 2024: 123 off 82 balls in eight innings at a strike rate of 150.
Shashank Kishore is senior junior editor at ESPNcricinfo
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