When India’s new T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav announced his team combination for the 1st T20I against Sri Lanka, fans were a bit shocked. SKY named his four players who were excluded from the first team. The two names included Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube, who are missing out from action today alongside the likes of Khaleel Ahmed and Sanju Samson.
Sundar: Best player vs ZIM, dropped vs SL
Washington Sundar deemed as an ideal Ravindra Jadeja replacement when he bagged the prestigious Player of the Series (POTS) award against Zimbabwe, where he bagged 8 wickets at an outstanding average of 11.6. He was judged as an ideal partner for someone like Axar Patel to be a designated spin-bowling all-rounder. Instead, India have gone batting heavy, involving Riyan Parag, who had a mediocre campaign against Zimbabwe.
Parag played across two innings and made just 24 runs. However, he is the ongoing first T20I when everyone expected him to warm the bench. Another major name excluded was Shivam Dube. He was the first-choice option three months ago, playing the entire T20 World Cup 2024 and even scoring a handy cameo in the final. It might be that Gautam Gambhir wanted to test out Parag and has thus left out Dube.
Team India playing XI vs SL
Ꮪhubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav(c), Riyan Parag, Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj
