Injured Axar Patel misses out, India pick R Ashwin in World Cup 2023 squad

In a last-minute change to the preliminary World Cup squad that was announced a few weeks back, India brought in R Ashwin for Axar Patel, who will take some time to recover from a quadricep injury. The rest of the provisional squad remains the same.

Axar suffered the injury during India’s Super Fours clash against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup and had to be replaced by Washington Sundar for the final.

India called up both Ashwin and Sundar for the squad for the three ODIs against Australia. Ashwin played the first two games, his first ODIs since January 2022. He impressed, particularly in the second ODI, in Indore, where he picked 3-41 in seven overs even as every other Indian bowler went at over six and a half runs per over.

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This will be the third consecutive white-ball World Cup for Ashwin, who seldom features in bilateral limited-overs cricket. He was recalled from T20I oblivion for the 2021 T20 World Cup and was the team’s main spinner in the 2022 edition.

Ashwin has played two World Cups in India – the 2011 ODI World Cup and the 2016 T20 World Cup. That experience will keep him in good stead, and might have been a factor behind India opting for him over Sundar.

Virat Kohli and Ashwin will join Navjot Sidhu, Manoj Prabhakar, Mohammad Azharuddin, and Sachin Tendulkar in the list of Indians to have played two World Cups on home soil.

There have been no other changes to the preliminary squad that was announced on September 4. India are 2/1 favourites to win the World Cup with Betway.

India squad for the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup

Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wk), Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami.