Senior leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has once again failed to make in the squad of the Indian team in a big event as he has been excluded from the 17-man squad for the Asia Cup 2023, which was announced on Monday by the chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar.
Ajit Agarkar and India captain Rohit Sharma attended a press conference on Monday where the squad for the continental tournament was named and the pair answered questions pertaining to the squad. The preliminary squad for the World Cup 2023 is expected to be named on September 4, and Yuzvendra Chahal is all but certain to miss out from that squad as well.
Over the past three years, Yuzvendra Chahal has had some misfortunes of missing out on important events: even though he played a lot of T20 cricket, he didn’t get to play a single match in the last two T20 World Cups. And now, he’s likely to miss from the ODI World Cup squad as well, despite the tournament being held at home in India.
Kuldeep Yadav preferred over Yuzvendra Chahal: Rohit Sharma, Agarkar give explanation
In the spin department, India have picked two spinning all-rounders in Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel and left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, who has earned his place through brilliant performances in the past year.
Rohit Sharma said that Yuzvendra Chahal was a bit unlucky to miss out on the squad, however, he added, the doors on him are not closed for World Cup.
“Right now you see Chahal had to miss out because we could only pick 17 players,” Rohit said. “The only way we could have picked him was if one of the seamers was missing. We can’t do that because seamers are going to play a big role in next two months. Few of them are coming back after a long time, so we wanted to have a good look at them, get them in and see what they have to offer. Having said that, no doors are closed on anyone. Anyone can come in anytime. If we feel like we need Chahal for the World Cup, we’ll see how we can squeeze him in.”
Agarkar also explained that since Kuldeep was an automatic selection, he didn’t want to pick another wrist-spinner in the squad.
Agarkar said: “Chahar has been a terrific performer but we had to look at the balance of the team. To fit in two wrist spinners was difficult.”
India squad for Asia Cup 2023: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya (VC), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Prasidh Krishna, Sanju Samson (travelling backup)
