BCCI’s selection committee, headed by Ajit Agarkar, may be close to finalising their provisional ODI World Cup squad, having already announced their team for Asia Cup earlier this week, but the chief selector admitted that the list of players would largely be based on the 17-member squad named for the continental event. Former India batting coach Sanjay Bangar hence picked his 15-man squad for the 2023 World Cup centered around the Asia Cup squad, but made as many as four notables changes to the team.
The ODI World Cup begins from October 5 onwards with the repeat of the 2019 final between champions England and New Zealand kicking off the proceedings at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. India will play their first match on October 8 against five-time winner Australia in Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium.
According to the rules of the ICC, all teams are slated to announce their preliminary squad by September 5, with Australia being the only side to make the announcement so far. However, the final date for the squad announcement is on September 27 with teams having the luxury of making as many changes to the initial squad as possible.
While India are yet to announce their squad for the World Cup yet, Bangar picked his 15 for the tournament which saw as many as three players from the Asia Cup squad getting dropped. The former India batter also made a surprise selection in the bowling department while snubbing Yuzvendra Chahal, who has been the cynosure of Asia Cup squad announcement after having failed to make the team.
The team, announced on Star Sports, comprises of five specialist batters, two wicketkeeper-batters, three all-rounders, one specialist spinner, and four pacers.
“My specialist batters would be Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, while wicket-keeper batters are Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul,” Bangar said. “For spin-bowling all-rounders, I would prefer both left-armers – Axar Patel, and Ravindra Jadeja. One pace bowling all-rounder would be Hardik Pandya, while the specialist spinner would be Kuldeep Yadav.
“The four fast bowlers would be Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh,” Bangar concluded.”
Arshdeep’s selection was a surprising one for most fans given that he has managed only three ODI appearances. Meanwhile, the three notables misses in Bangar’s squad from that of the Asia Cup are – Tilak Varma, who bagged his maiden ODI call-up in the squad announcement for the continental event, Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna.
