ICC Champions Trophy 2017: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has finally announced the 15-man squad for the ICC Champions Trophy 2017. After skipping the deadline and threatening to pull out of the tournament, the BCCI took the right decision and announced the squad in the larger interest of the game.
There were no surprises in the squad as the BCCI didn’t make out of the box selection and stuck to their old combination.
Team India’s Squad For ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (wk), Yuvraj Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Manish Pandey
However, many fans were hoping that Gautam Gambhir, who is one of the leading run scorers in IPL 2017, would finally make his One Day International comeback. The KKR captain has batted brilliantly and played some match-winning innings for his team. After KL Rahul was declared unfit for the tournament, many former cricketers like Sourav Ganguly and Ravi Shastri had put their weight behind Gambhir. But, keeping all other opinions aside, the selectors went for Ajinkya Rahane, who has been in horrible form in iPL 2017, to say the least.
Rahane is a very fine Test batsman but his record in ODI cricket is nothing spectacular. In 73 ODI matches, has scored 2237 runs at an average of 32.42. His last 5 scores in ODI cricket are 1, 20, 57, 5, 28.
Gautam Gambhir Should Have Been Picked As India’s 3rd Opener
Over the years, Gambhir has been KKR’s star performer in IPL and he has scored runs consistently at the domestic level. But due to stiff competition for the opening slot and successful combination of Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, Gambhir couldn’t push selectors for a spot in the team.
Dhawan, who was dropped for India’s last series against England, has batted well in the ongoing IPL 2017 and impressed selectors with his batting at the top of the order for Sunrisers Hyderabad, alongside David Warner. But, on the other hand, Rahane has scored 248 runs at a poor average of 20.66. Whereas Gautam Gambhir 425 runs at an average of 47.22.
Now, if IPL performances were considered as a parameter to judge Shikhar Dhawan’s form, it is hard to understand why Gambhir, who has always been a big match player, was ignored despite his good form and experience of playing in England.
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