Senior off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin picked in India’s T20 World Cup squad, returns to white-ball side after 4 years.
Ashwin last played a T20I in July 2017 against West Indies. He captained the Punjab team in the IPL in the 2018 and 2019 seasons, bagging 10 and 15 wickets respectively. Ashwin shifted base to Delhi Capitals in 2020 and picked up 13 wickets at an average of 30.07 and an economy of 7.66 in his first season for the side. He featured in five of the eight matches that the Capitals played in 2021, and managed a solitary wicket while he had an economy of 7.73.
The selectors have also included the in-form legspinner Chahar, who is among the top-five wicket-takers in IPL 2021. Apart from the 11 wickets in the seven matches played by Mumbai Indians so far, Chahar also bagged four wickets in the two T20Is he played against Sri Lanka, at an average of 10.40 and an economy of 5.25.
India have announced their 15-member squad for the 2021 Men’s T20 World Cup with R Ashwin making the cut while Shikhar Dhawan, who captained the team in the limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka this summer, has been left out.
The squad was announced on Wednesday night at BCCI’s Mumbai headquarters by secretary Jay Shah (convenor of selection committee) and Chetan Sharma (chairman, selection committee).
India begin the T20 WC campaign against Pakistan on October 24 in Dubai. They’ll face New Zealand at the same venue on October 31 while they will take on Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi on November 3. India will play a total of five matches in the group stage, with their remaining games on November 5 and November 8 against two of the four teams that emerge from the qualifiers.
India squad for ICC T20 World Cup 2021: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohd Shami
