India announced their squad for the T20 World Cup on April 30, with several contenders missing out. Here’s an alternative XI of players who didn’t make the squad, which has the potential to challenge an XI of the selected players.
Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.
The squad India have named for the T20 World Cup contains a mix of experience and youth. Rohit Sharma will lead the side, which also has Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, and Jasprit Bumrah as senior players. The most talked about (non) selection has been that of Rinku Singh who has been left out of the 15 after impressing in India colours over the last year. He is, however, part of a group of four travelling reserves, taking the touring party up to 19 players.
For the alternative XI, which excludes those 19 players, we will look at Indian players who have been in and around the periphery of the T20I side, or have recently impressed in the IPL.
Top order (No.1-No.3)
Selected top order batters for the T20 WC: Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill (reserve), Virat Kohli, Sanju Samson.
Among the top order batters not picked, many have been doing well in the ongoing IPL season, including but not limited to KL Rahul, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sai Sudharshan, Abhishek Sharma, and Prithvi Shaw.
With the alternative XI already having a seam-bowling option and three part-time spin-bowling options in the top seven, it makes sense to go in with a combination of two frontline spinners and two frontline seamers to make up a varied attack that can take on the main India team that has been selected.
Consequently, Ravi Bishnoi and Varun make it as the two spinners, both with the ability to operate across phases, and Rana and Natarajan make it as the two fast bowlers.
Alternative bowling line up: Ravi Bishnoi, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, T Natarajan
Alternative XI
KL Rahul (wk) (c)
Abhishek Sharma
Ruturaj Gaikwad
Riyan Parag
Tilak Varma
Shashank Singh
Nitish Kumar Reddy
Ravi Bishnoi
Harshit Rana
Varun Chakravarthy
T Natarajan
