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India’s five-match Twenty20 International (T20I)
series against Australia begins on November 23. Suryakumar Yadav will captain
the team while Hardik Pandya is still recovering from an ankle injury. For the
first three games, Ruturaj Gaikwad will serve as vice-captain; after that,
Shreyas Iyer, who will join the team for the final two games, will take over.
Only four days have passed since India’s defeat to
Australia in the Ahmedabad ODI World Cup final. But now that the T20 World Cup
in the USA and the West Indies is around six months away, attention will turn
to T20Is.
From the ODI World Cup squad, Suryakumar, Ishan Kishan
and Prasidh Krishna are the only ones named for the whole series, while Axar
Patel, who was ruled out of the World Cup with a quadriceps strain, is back.
Sanju Samson and Shahbaz Ahmed, who were included in
the squad for the August Ireland T20Is, were left out. Neither Abhishek Sharma,
the Player of the Tournament, nor Riyan Parag, who nearly single-handedly led
Assam to the semi-final of the just-finished Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, could get
a spot.
Washington Sundar is the other all-around player
besides Axar. Shivam Dube is also a contender, although he hasn’t bowled much
lately—he’s only taken four wickets in eight Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy games. The
team’s lone wrist spinner is Ravi Bishnoi.
This is Suryakumar’s first time as India’s leader. In
36 previous domestic cricket matches in all formats, he captained Mumbai. He
also led the Mumbai Indians against the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL
earlier this year.
The team for the five Twenty20 Internationals will be
led by VVS Laxman, who had coached the Indian men’s side to the gold medal in
the Asian Games. Before the caravan travels to Thiruvananthapuram (November
26), Guwahati (November 28), Raipur (December 1), and Bengaluru (December 3),
the first match will take place at Visakhapatnam.