India announced the squads for the Asian Games 2023 on Friday and surprised everyone by naming Ruturaj Gaikwad as the new T20I captain. Very few had predicted this as Shikhar Dhawan was tipped to return to the national team setup to lead the Indian team in the multi-sport event in China's Hangzhou starting on September 2023.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is sending squads to Asian Games events for the first time. But the tournament's schedule collides with the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 in India which will kick off from October 5. So, the BCCI is sending men's second-string side and women's senior team to Hangzhou.
Gaikwad has already featured for India in both white-ball formats and is currently part of the ongoing Test series against West Indies. He made his international debut during the T20I series against Sri Lanka in July 2021 but due to the intense battle for top-order places, he has been limited to only nine T20Is and one ODI game so far.
The 26-year-old batter from Maharashtra first grabbed the attention when he bagged the Orange Cap award in Indian Premier League 2021 with Chennai Super Kings. He was the leading run-scorer for his team in the 2022 edition and then again dominated the tournament by scoring 590 runs in the recently concluded season.
Gaikwad's promotion to captain Indian team flooded Twitter with fans' reactions. Many are predicting future captaincy for CSK star and MS Dhoni's potential successor at the most successful IPL team.
India's 15-member squad also features Rinku Singh and Prabhsimran Singh for the first time. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tilak Varma, who are part of India's T20I squad for the upcoming series against West Indies, are also included in a star-studded team.
Team India squad for Asian Games: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), 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 list of players: Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Sai Sudarsan
