Decoding the selection conundrum in India's T20I squad for West Indies series

With Team India announcing a 14-man squad for the 2-match T20I series against West Indies in Florida, quite a few names from their previous assignments missed out due to various reasons.

Interestingly, only nine members from their 2016 World T20 contingent feature in the team. Touted as regulars in the limited-overs setup, the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin make a comeback after the ICC event.

However, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Pawan Negi, Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra and Manish Pandey have all been left out for India’s maiden appearance in USA.

The focal point behind their exclusion is the issue of availability as India ‘A’ are scheduled to play a quadrangular tournament in Australia during August-September. There is also the Duleep Trophy which will be held under lights with the pink ball in the same time-frame.

The twin T20Is against West Indies are slated to take place on the 27th and 28th at Central Broward Regional Park Stadium Turf Ground in Lauderhill. However, the games were not part of the original schedule and had been inserted recently to fill a vacant slot.

Squads for the other two competitions were named earlier which meant that those selected ruled themselves out of contention. The trio of Manish Pandey, Axar Patel and Barinder Sran were part of India’s preceding series in Zimbabwe. All-rounder Hardik Pandya will also travel to Australia alongside the aforementioned players.

While Sran ended up as the leading wicket-taker in India’s 2-1 victory, Pandey and Patel could not manage a strong showing. With the seniors returning to action, they were also unlikely to retain their places.

On the other hand, the forthcoming edition of Duleep Trophy will also see the pink ball featuring in a major domestic event for the first time in India. Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh have been chosen to lead India Green and India Red respectively with veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh set to participate as well.

However, the seasoned Ashish Nehra is currently rebounding from a knee surgery which prevented him from continuing his association in the shortest format even as Pawan Negi‘s dropping could be cited to performance issues.

In fact, Raina, Yuvraj and Harbhajan also failed to impress in the World T20 thus indicating that the selection committee could have even decided to provide them with a chance in the first-class circuit ahead of a packed home season.

After being involved in the ongoing Test series against the same opponents, 12 of the 14 selected members will have to switch to T20 mode pretty quickly with only MS Dhoni and Jasprit Bumrah joining the group from back home.

India’s T20I Squad for West Indies series – MS Dhoni (c) (wk), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra, Stuart Binny