Asian Games 2023: After being snubbed during the T20 series against West Indies, Rinku Singh, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Jitesh Sharma have been selected for the Asian Games to be played in China. The Board of Control in India (BCCI) on Friday announced the squad for the Asian Games 2023.
The squad for the Continental Games is a second-string team as the event is clashing with ICC ODI World Cup set to begin on October 5. Rituraj Gaikwad has been appointed as the captain of the Indian team for the event. Apart from Gaikwad, Jitesh, and Rinku, Arshdeep Singh, Rahul Chahar, and Tilak Varma have also been included in Asian Games.
Meanwhile, India’s veteran opener Shikhar Dhawan has not been included in the squad for the Continental Games.
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Gaikwad, Jitesh, and Rinku all had a pretty good IPL 2023 season. Gaikwad scored 590 runs in 16 matches for CSK, while Jitesh and Rinku scored 309 and 474 runs for PBKS and KKR respectively. The trio were unlucky to miss out on the West Indies squad as the selectors picked Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, and Tilak Varma.
However, with the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, KL Rahul, and Jasprit Bumrah missing the Asian Games, Gaikwad, Rinku, and Jitesh have been called in to play Asian Games.
Cricket was part of two editions of the Asiad in 2010 and 2014, but India did not send women’s and men’s teams. After being left out in the 2018 edition in Jakarta, India are set to compete in the Asian Games after a 12-year hiatus.
“We have entries in all sports except one – cricket (team) isn’t going,” India’s chef de mission for the Asian Games, Bhupender Bajwa had told The Indian Express earlier. “They said they are preoccupied. We sent around 3-4 emails to them, but when we had to send entries to the organizers, they said they won’t go.”
This won’t be the first time India will field two national teams simultaneously. In 1998, one Indian team turned out at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, while another team faced Pakistan in Sahara Cup. Recently in 2021, India fielded two teams with Shikhar Dhawan-led second-string team playing against Sri Lanka while another team led by Virat Kohli was in London laying Test series.
India’s Squad for Asian Games:
Ruturaj Gaikwad (Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Shivam Dube, Prabhsimran Singh (wk)
Standby Players: Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Sai Sudarsan
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