ICC Cricket T20 World Cup-2021: R Ashwin enters, Dhawan and Chahal exit the Indian team!
The senior selection committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the 15-member Indian squad for the ICC T20-2021 World Cup starting on 17 October 2021 in Oman and United Arab Emirates. The final of the tournament is scheduled for November 14, 2021. The Indian captain for all formats, Virat Kohli, will lead the team with the rather strange introduction of MS Dhoni as Mentor of the team – how is he going to carry out that duty in the presence of all the coaches is something that is left to the imagination maybe this is being done thanks to Dhoni’s tremendous track record as the former Indian skipper, his excellent relationship with Virat Kohli and that he will be there anyway because of the staging of the remaining part of the IPL (Indian Premier League) -2021, which also moved to the United Arab Emirates.
This tournament is actually the delayed version of the ICC T20-2020 World Cup which was originally scheduled in Australia but had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was then scheduled in India during the same period but due to Due to the danger of a third wave of the pandemic in India, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has finally moved it to the United Arab Emirates with some matches to be played in Oman. IPL-2021 too, which was played in just three venues in India, had to be stopped midway due to the disastrous second wave of COVID-19 and was later scheduled in the United Arab Emirates from September 19, 2021. Before moving on to the match structure in the ICC T20 World Cup-2021, let us take a look at the Indian team selected for the tournament.
India Team for ICC T20 World Cup-2021: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (Vice-captain), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (Goalkeeper), Ishan Kishan (Goalkeeper), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami.
Reserve players: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur.
The team seems balanced and mostly along the expected lines with KL Rahul probably starting with vice-captain Rohit Sharma; of course reserve goalkeeper Ishan Kishan is also a starter in the IPL. Here comes the surprising omission of Shikhar Dhawan, who had been Rohit’s regular opening partner and whose injury greatly hampered India’s progress at the ICC World Cup-2019. Maybe he didn’t get the final call due to his recent record being a bit not too good and also the fact that KL Rahul was doing well as a starter in the IPL. However, it must be said that Rahul has basically been a test starter who was denied a place until the series against England where he justified the selection of him; but even if he gets going in the shorter format, he often fails to get the momentum the way Dhawan does, and that often hampers the team’s chances of winning. Therefore, the decision to abandon Dhawan is fraught with danger. If Ishan Kishan plays, there will be two goalkeepers in the team, as Rishabh Pant cannot be removed.
Similarly, the inclusion of Ravichandran Ashwin comes as a surprise considering the fact that he has been India’s best Test spinner of late and yet did not play in the Test series against England. Perhaps the UAE’s slow and often changeable pitches factor into his selection along with up-and-coming spinners Rahul Chahar, Axar Patel and Varun Chakravarthy. The final eleven would depend on the IPL, because all these players will be there playing for their respective teams. Yazuvendra Chahal’s omission is not a big surprise given his erratic displays in various matches. India’s three regular and experienced fast bowlers are obviously figuring in the team with Hardik Pandya to assist them as needed.
There will be two rounds in the tournament: the first, starting on October 17, 2021, is the qualifying round of 8 teams that have been formed into two groups with the top two teams from each group entering the second round of Super -12 starting from October 23. It should be noted that India, being the previous hosts, qualified for the Super-12 immediately, and 7 of the other 9 teams in the ICC standings also qualified directly for the second round. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh failed to qualify as bottom of the ICC standings, with both teams featuring in both qualifying groups. Other teams include Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Namibia, Oman and Papua New Guinea, the latest team to play in the World Cup for the first time. Most of the qualifying matches will be played in Oman.
At the Super-12 stage there will also be two groups of six teams each with India and Pakistan placed in Group 2. The qualified teams are marked as A1, A2 and B1, B2. All group matches will be played as round robin matches within each group respectively and the top two teams from each group will enter the semi-final stage, from which it will be the knockout stage until the final on November 14, 2019. 2021. With the IPL -2021 matches to be played there until 15th October 2021. It would be interesting to see if this bonanza tournament played in the same format would help cricketers better prepare for the big international competition or tire them out , including some of the more. -Indian players played. I would also be curious to know if all the international teams would allow their best players to play in the IPL or take them to special training sessions. Whatever the scenario, cricket lovers will enjoy some great cricket with the United Arab Emirates fortunately becoming a surefire hotspot for cricket.
