The Indian cricket team finished their final assignment of 2022 with a stunning 3-wicket win against Bangladesh in Dhaka on Sunday. The Indian side will kickstart 2023 with a home series against Sri Lanka. While the selection committee is yet to announce the squad for the limited-overs contest where India will play three T20Is and as many ODIs, however, Star Sports might have revealed the truth.
Yes, on Sunday, even before the BCCI, Star Sports, who are the official broadcasters of the India vs Sri Lanka series, released a series promo indicating Hardik Pandya as India’s captain for the upcoming series. The promo was deleted minutes later.
India’s regular captain Rohit Sharma has been recovering from a thumb injury that he suffered during the 2nd ODI match against Bangladesh. He was ruled out of the remaining ODI series and subsequently from the 2-match Test series as well. As per a report, Rohit Sharma’s injury is likely to take some more time to heal. The BCCI is yet to release an official update regarding Rohit’s availability for the upcoming series.
On Sunday evening, hours after the end of the Bangladesh Test match in Mirpur, Star Sports shared a video on Twitter with the caption that read: “Hardik ‘Raj”. At the end of the video, Star Sports also showed a poster for the series which had Dasun Shanka, Sri Lanka captain, on one side and Hardik on the other. The caption of the video read:
“.@hardikpandya7 is ready to kick-start the New Year with a bang against the Asian T20I Champions! #BelieveInBlue & get ready to witness some action from this new #TeamIndia under the Hardik ‘Raj’ Mastercard #INDvSL series | Starts Jan 3 | Star Sports & Disney+Hotstar,”
Check out the Tweet:
— The Game Changer (@TheGame_26) December 25, 2022
Notably, the outgoing Chetan Sharma-led selection committee has been assigned the task of picking the two white-ball teams. While they are yet to reveal the name by making an official announcement of the squads, however, seems like Star Sports might just have leaked the information on who would lead the Indian side.
