The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the men's team squads for the upcoming white-ball series against Sri Lanka, starting next week in Pallekele. While there were familiar faces in both the squads, there were a few surprises as well, especially in terms of leadership and backups, given the team is now building a team for the future in T20Is and towards the Champions Trophy in 2025 in the ODIs.
However, Abhishek Ruturaj Gaikwad, Mukesh Kumar and Sanju Samson will feel a bit hard done. While Gaikwad was expected to be picked in T20Is, however, despite his performances at No 3 and 4 in the Zimbabwe series, he hasn't been picked in either of the teams, similarly for Mukesh Kumar, who got a four-fer in the final T20I a few days ago in Zimbabwe. While Samson has retained his spot in the T20Is as the second wicketkeeper after Rishabh Pant, he wasn't retained for the ODIs despite smashing a ton when India last played a one-day international against South Africa in December 2023.
Similarly, Abhishek Sharma, who smashed a century in the Zimbabwe series, was also not picked.
Former India cricketer Dodda Ganesh felt for Samson as despite the performances and runs, he wasn't looked at this time around in the ODIs. And it has always been Samson, whether in T20Is in the past or in ODIs now. Even in the T20 World Cup, Samson was benched for the whole tournament.
"Shivam Dube in place of Sanju Samson in the ODIs is ridiculous. Poor Sanju scored a century in his last series against SA. Why him always? My heart goes out to this young man," Ganesh wrote on X (formerly Twitter.) Not just Ganesh, the fans too were gutted for Samson saying that the 'inconsistent' tag too no longer carries value as an argument justifying the wicketkeeper's snub.
India's ODI squad for Sri Lanka matches: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Rishabh Pant (WK), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Riyan Parag, Axar Patel, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana.
