Suryakumar Yadav leads India's 15-member squad for Australia T20I series
Suryakumar Yadav will lead the Indian cricket team for the upcoming five-match T20I series against Australia, starting in Vishakapatnam on November 23. VVS Laxman will step in as the head coach of the team in Rahul Dravid's absence. Most of the players who went to Ireland will feature in this series against the Aussies. But Jasprit Bumrah, who led that team, has been rested.
A look at India's squad for the Australia T20I series
India's 15-member squad: Suryakumar Yadav (Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vice-captain), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wicket-keeper), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, and Mukesh Kumar. Axar has made a return to India's T20I set-up after he was replaced by Ravichandran Ashwin right before the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Hardik Pandya remains on the sidelines
Indian T20I captain Hardik Pandya got injured in the 2023 ODI World Cup clash against Bangladesh. He was sent to NCA in Bengaluru to regain his match fitness. But later he was ruled out of the competition and courtesy of his injury history, the team management will be in no rush. In his absence, Suryakumar was selected as the leader of this team.
The return of Axar Patel
Axar was declared injured right before the World Cup and Ashwin replaced him in the final squad. Since then, the left-arm spinner returned with 67 runs and four wickets in the 2023 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Overall, Axar has scalped 39 wickets in 45 T20Is while slamming 328 runs in this format. However, he bats at a decent strike rate of 147.74.
Shahbaz Ahmed misses out
Bengal spin bowling all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed, who was part of India's T20I set-up misses out due to Axar's inclusion. Shahbaz even featured in the Asian Games where India won the gold medal in Hangzhou, China.
SKY will lead the team in Hardik's absence
The selectors considered handing the captaincy to Shreyas Iyer but due to workload management of the recently concluded ODI World Cup, they gave it to Suryakumar. However, Iyer will join the team for the last two T20Is in Raipur and Bengaluru. SKY has been a part of the Mumbai Indians leadership group for some time now and that experience will surely help him.
A look at the schedule for the T20I series
The final two matches in the five-match T20I series have been relocated to Raipur and Bengaluru from Nagpur and Hyderabad respectively. The changes have taken place due to elections in various state assemblies. November 23 -1st T20I in Visakhapatnam November 26 -2nd T20I in Thiruvananthapuram November 28 -3rd T20I in Guwahati December 1 -4th T20I in Raipur December 3 -5th T20I in Bengaluru.
