Rohit Sharma refused to disclose why India picked four spinners in their 15-member squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup in North America.

India named their squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup on April 30. An intriguing aspect of the 15-member unit was the presence of four spinners. These included Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, all-rounders who bowl left-arm finger-spin; leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal; and left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav.

India squad for 2024 T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj. Reserves: Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan.

Not every team has named their squad so far, but of the ones that have, the favourites include Australia, England, South Africa, and New Zealand. Each of them boast of at least four fast bowlers, while none of them have four spinners whose stronger suit is bowling.

Vice-captain Hardik Pandya, the closest to a fourth fast bowler in the Indian squad, has not bowled a lot in the IPL, and is almost certainly set to be the sixth bowler of the attack.

At a press conference in Mumbai today (May 2), Indian captain Rohit was asked about India’s decision to pick four spinners in their squad.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail on it,” said Rohit, “because I’m sure all the opposition captains will be listening to this. I’ll give you a short answer: I definitely wanted four spinners. We played a lot of cricket there [in the West Indies]. We know what the conditions are like. The match starts at… 10, 10:30.

“So, there is a little bit of technical aspect involved in this. Maybe in the first press conference I do in the West Indies, I’ll give more detail on this. The reason for picking four spinners … I’m not going to say in public now, but I’ll definitely say it there.”

“I wanted four spinners for sure,” affirmed Rohit, “and three seamers, Hardik being the fourth. So, you get the balance of seamers as well as spinners. Two spinners being all-rounders who can bat, Axar and Jaddu, and two attacking spinners, Kuldeep and Chahal, gives you little balance in the spin department as well.

“Based on the opposition composition we can decide what to play with. Kuldeep and Chahal can play together; there is a good chance both left-arm spinners can play along with Kuldeep; Kuldeep may not play; Chahal may not play – all sorts of things are possible.”

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.