BCCI President Sourav Ganguly hinted that India will play its full strength T20I side from the England tour next month, with the T20 World Cup 2022 not far away.
India are currently trailing 1-2 in a five-match home T20I series against South Africa, sans most of their senior players. While regular captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami, among others were given a break ahead of the rescheduled fifth Test against England at Edgbaston next month, KL Rahul, who was named the skipper for the South Africa series was ruled out with injury a day before its start, with Rishabh Pant taking over.
India have another white-ball assignment later this month – two T20Is against Ireland – for which they’ve already named the squad, with Hardik Pandya as the captain. Pant, alongside Shreyas Iyer, will join the Test squad in England, after the completion of the ongoing series.
🗣️ Rahul Tripathi after getting his maiden India call-up#CricketTwitter #Cricket pic.twitter.com/OwKb4VeKgl
— CricXtasy (@CricXtasy) June 15, 2022
The selection committee rewarded Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh with maiden T20I call-ups for the home series after their exploits at IPL 2022, and have now included Rahul Tripathi for the Ireland tour.
They have quite a few options to build a solid core for the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia, but time seems to be running by, with the marquee event just four months away.
Sourav Ganguly, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President, stated that head coach Rahul Dravid is planning to build a settled team in the coming overseas tour, with the T20 WC in mind.
“Rahul Dravid (Team India head coach) is looking into it,” Ganguly told TOI in an interview. “He has been planning to play a settled set of players at some stage. Probably from the England tour next month, we will start playing with players who are likely to play in the T20 World Cup in October.”
India will play two T20Is against Ireland in Dublin on June 26 and 28, with an entirely different set of players gearing up for the Edgbaston Test which begins on July 1. That will be followed by three T20Is on July 7, 9 and 10, and later three ODIs on July 12, 14 and 17.
