A month-long tour of the West Indies and the USA came to a conclusion and not long before the Indian cricket team will be involved in another assignment, this time in Ireland. Considering there's an ODI World Cup in less than two months, a T20I series against a team ranked 12th in the ICC rankings, wouldn't have made much sense, however, this series has now certainly become a little important given a couple of players are returning after long injury layoffs while this will be the only chance for the young brigade to test themselves at the highest level for those who are going to China next month for the Asian Games.
Jasprit Bumrah, the strike bowler for India for the last few years will be playing his first competitive game in 11 months and straight away he will be leading the side for the first time in T20Is. Since, there is an Asia Cup to be played in a couple of weeks' time, the regulars have been rested while for Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna, another fellow pacer returning after a year, it will be an opportunity to slowly get used to the international cricket workload with 4-over spells rather than going straightaway into the 10-over ones.
Since Bumrah will be leading, this squad looks completely different from the one that played against the West Indies till last week as the captain and the vice-captain in that series are rested for Ireland games. So let's take a look at all the changes in the squad from the previous T20 assignment:
IN:
Jasprit Bumrah as mentioned is probably the biggest name in the list of players coming into the squad. Similarly with Prasidh Krishna, who last played a series against Zimbabwe last August. The whole of India will be hoping and praying that both of them are absolutely fit and are raring to go. Among the ones coming into the squad are Ruturaj Gaikwad, who was part of the Test and ODI squads on the West Indies tour but not in T20Is and Rinku Singh, which was his second call-up for the Indian team but could be his first series.
Shivam Dube has made a comeback after more than three years, Jitesh Sharma is in line to make his debut but this wasn't his first call-up as he was part of the squad for Sri Lanka and New Zealand T20Is earlier this year as an injury replacement of Sanju Samson. Washington Sundar and Shahbaz Ahmed return after not being part of the national side for the last few months.
OUT:
Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav and Umran Malik - all eight players who are missing from the squad are either rested or are not picked keeping in mind the Asia Cup. If not all of them, majority of them are a certainty in the Asia Cup squad and since the head coach wanted a preparation camp ahead of the tournament, the turnaround between Ireland series and the camp that starts on August 24, would have been too little.
India's T20I squad for Ireland series: Jasprit Bumrah (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sanju Samson (WK), Jitesh Sharma (WK), Ravi Bishnoi, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh Khan
