After India's exit in the semi-finals of the World Cup, there were question marks thrown towards the selectors and the management for not being able to identify players to overcome the middle-order muddle which has become India's Achilles heel and eventually, was the reason why they had to bow out of the tournament.
With the West Indies tour slated shortly after, it was expected that the selectors would use this opportunity to blood young players and give them a long rope in the three formats, especially in the T20 and ODIs. Yes, there have been a few inclusions made which is keeping an eye on the future and there is a new-look T20I squad, which could form a premise for the World T20 scheduled to take place next year.
Ganguly does not agree with the sides picked
However, former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly is not convinced with the approach of picking different players for different sides. He has advised the selectors to pick the same players across all the formats for better rhythm and continuity.
Taking to Twitter, Ganguly wrote: Time has come for Indian selectors to pick same players in all formats of the game for rhythm and confidence.. too few are playing in all formats ..great teams had consistent players ..it's not about making all happy but picking the best for the country and be consistent..
This comes after chief selector MSK Prasad announced India's squads for the three series in West Indies. "We have taken India A performances into consideration. In the longer format, KS Bharat was very, very close to getting selected. We have an unwritten norm when a senior cricketer is injured, he should get a comeback opportunity. That's what we have given to Saha," MSK Prasad said.
Shikhar Dhawan returns to the limited-overs setup and to beef up the middle order, the selectors included Manish Pandey and Shreyas Iyer. Prasad referred to India A form while explaining a few selections, with Iyer and Pandey impressing in the unofficial ODIs against West Indies 'A'. Also, uncapped pacer Navdeep Saini, who began the India A tour of West indies with a five-fer, has been drafted in along with left-arm pacer, Khaleel Ahmed.
There are a lot of changes made to the T20I setup - Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Umesh Yadav and Siddarth Kaul all miss out while the selectors have gone ahead and picked Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Rahul Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar and Navdeep Saini.
