India picked four seamers for their opening T20 World Cup game against Ireland in New York, and made several other crucial selection calls.
India's XI for the Ireland game: Rohit Sharma (c), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh.
No Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dube backed instead
Ahead of India's only T20I series this year, against Afghanistan in January, head coach Rahul Dravid confirmed Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal as India's first-choice T20I openers. A relatively indifferent IPL season later, Jaiswal has found himself out of the first XI, with Virat Kohli taking up the opening slot alongside Rohit for India's first match of the T20 World Cup. The last time Kohli opened in a T20I was against Afghanistan in the 2022 Asia Cup, when he famously broke his international century drought.
On the other hand, Shivam Dube, another southpaw, has been given a place in the XI despite a poor end to his IPL season, where he barely managed to put bat to ball. The rationale behind the move is clear, though.
In Kohli, India have one of the most reliable batters at the top, who is at the peak of his T20 game. Playing Jaiswal would have meant shifting Kohli down to three, depriving him of the opportunity to make best use of the powerplay. It would also have led him to potentially start his innings in the middle overs, something he doesn't exactly excel at, unlike Dube.
The left-handed all-rounder is a certified middle overs basher who has added a level of consistency to his game in the last couple of seasons. Arguably the only real power-hitter in the Indian T20I setup currently, his strength through the middle overs will be important for India at a venue like New York, where the outfield is unusually slow and batting is extremely tough. Add to that his bowling abilities, and he becomes too tempting an option to not consider.
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Jadeja and Axar picked over Kuldeep
Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel were named in a T20I team sheet together for the first time as India preferred the two all-rounders over Kuldeep Yadav's left-arm wrist spin.
While Kuldeep has the fourth-best bowling strike rate among spinners in T20I history, the batting depth offered by Jadeja and Axar is priceless from India's point of view, who have often struggled in this area in white-ball cricket.
Had they picked Kuldeep instead of either of the two all-rounders, India's tail would have started at No.8, with either Jadeja or Axar at No.7. On a bowling friendly surface, that is far from an ideal combination to have. In fact, knowing that enough help would be available for the bowlers would have played into the call of not picking Kuldeep, as the conditions would increase the wicket-taking potency of Axar and Jadeja. This reduces the requirement for Kuldeep's skill and guile with the ball and increases the value of the batting skills of the two all-rounders.
Four seamers including Hardik
India picked all the seamers they had available in the squad for the Ireland game and understandably so. In the two games that had been played at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York before the India-Ireland clash, 17 out of the 23 wickets picked by bowlers belonged to the seamers.
The pitch at the newly built Nassau County Stadium has come into the scanner for its uneven bounce several times, including before the India-Ireland game and during it as Ireland collapsed in the first innings, with balls taking off from a good length as well as dying down on occasions.
India's bowling combination was vindicated as by the end of the 11th over of Ireland's innings, their score read 49-7, all wickets having been shared among the four seamers.
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