Ajit Agarkar explained how leaving Rinku Singh out of the T20 World Cup squad was the ‘toughest’ decision they had to take.

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In a press conference held today (May 2) at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai, India captain Rohit Sharma and chair of selectors Agarkar addressed the media, answering questions on the squad that was announced for the 2024 T20 World Cup on Tuesday (April 30).

The notable call that took everyone by surprise was the omission of Rinku, who has established himself as a first-choice finisher for India in the format in the last year. Heading into the IPL season, Rinku’s T20I career numbers read 356 runs at an average of 89 and a strike rate of 176. Instead, the selectors picked Shivam Dube, another left-hander, who has been lighting up the IPL from the last couple of seasons with his middle-overs six-hitting.

On being asked the reason behind not selecting Rinku, Agarkar explained that they wanted to give the captain enough bowling options to choose from and that it was not because of any fault of Rinku’s. “It’s probably the toughest thing we’ve had to discuss, frankly,” he said.

“I mean, he’s done nothing wrong, nor has Shubman Gill for that matter. It’s again the combinations. Like Rohit said, we’re not quite sure what conditions we’ll get. So we wanted to try and have enough options. There are a couple of wrist spinners that were included in the squad, Chahal and Kuldeep, to give Rohit more options. Axar again, batting all-rounder, or bowling all-rounder rather.

“Yeah, it’s just unfortunate. I don’t think it has anything to do with Rinku Singh. It’s not his fault that he’s missed out. It’s more the 15 that we felt. With two keepers who are both terrific batters, there is already an extra batter sitting out whoever doesn’t play. So we just thought to have another bowling option might be handy going forward in the tournament.

“He’s still one of the travelling subs. That’s how close he was. It’s a little bit tough on him, but at the end of the day you can only pick 15.

India’s T20 World Cup campaign starts on June 5 against Ireland, followed by the big game against Pakistan on June 9.

India’s squad for the T20 World Cup

Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, Suryakumar Yadav.

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