Fringe India players eye Asia Cup as ticket to T20 World Cup

27.08.2022 - 07:07 timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Rohit Sharma said a few days ago that 80-90% of the squad is settled. Even though the trend post Covid is to carry 18 players, including three stand-byes, Rohit was probably talking about the final 15 who will be part of the World Cup team.

The Indian team has quite a few T20s scheduled in the next couple of months, starting with the Asia Cup, and it’s the perfect platform for the fringe players to make an impression.

If there are no last-minute injuries, the certainties for the World Cup are Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvenshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah.

That leaves four spots and there are about nine contenders, eight being part of the Asia Cup touring party (including stand-byes).

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Ever since Pakistan's defeat to Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup final, a lot has been said about the Asian giants' weak middle order. Pakistan lost two matches in a row to the islanders and surrendered the Asia Cup title. The lack of technically sound batters in the middle order is seen as a major reason for that and several former players have asked the selectors to look into this before announcing the team for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup in Australia.

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India announced their 15-member squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup squad in Australia and despite a poor Asia Cup showing, stuck to the same players. Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel are back from injury to bolster the pace attack while Axar Patel replaced the injured Ravindra Jadeja. Players like Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul, who have copped flak for their poor showing in the Asia Cup, have both made it to the squad.

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Experienced Indian pacer Shami failed to make the cut to the team but he will travel to Australia as a standby. After last year's T20 World Cup, he was out of India's T20I scheme. However, after the team's poor show in Asia Cup 2022, he has been recalled to the team for South Africa and Australia T20I series.

Three things Sri Lanka got right that Team India will be looking to improve on ahead of the T20 World Cup

Sri Lanka, going through one of the most torrid times in their history as a nation, emerging as the 2022 Asia Cup champions. But against all odds, Dasun Shanaka and co. played a very brave brand of T20 cricket to clinch the island nation's 6th Asia Cup title and deliver a sense of joy and relief to a crisis-hit nation. The loss in their Asia Cup opener was their only defeat in the tournament this time, with the Lankans registering an epic turnaround, winning 5 straight games after the defeat to Afghanistan to go all the way in the 2022 edition of the tournament, which was only the second time that the Asia Cup was played in the T20I format.