Shubman Gill replaces Rohit Sharma as opener; Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube ignored in India’s T20 World Cup squad by M Vijay

The discussions around the T20 World Cup squad has grown from intense over the weekend with BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar having met Rohit in New Delhi on Sunday on the sidelines of the the ongoing IPL 2024. The former cricketer, along with fellow members of the selection committee, on Tuesday met BCCI secretary Jay Shah to finalise on the squad for the World Cup.

Ahead of the big announcement, Vijay reckoned that captain Rohit should bat in the middle order for India in the T20 World Cup and allow Shubman Gill to pair up with Jaiswal as openers. Rohit has batted at No. 4 and 5 16 times in his T20I career, scoring 275 runs at a strike rate of just 119.56 with three fifties.

The other big decision that the former Chennai Super Kings batter took was picking KL Rahul as the back-up wicketkeeper ahead of Sanju Samson, despite the Rajasthan Royals batter having a better IPL 2024 season than his Lucknow Super Giants counterpart. Samson scored 385 runs at a strike rate of 161 this season, the second-highest among Indian keeping options, after Rishabh Pant, while Rahul has managed 363 runs in eight games at a strike rate of 143.47.

The biggest call by Vijay however was to exclude both the power-hitters in Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube, despite all his colleagues in the commetary box this IPL season calling for their inclusion. And it comes amid reports that the selectors are more keen on having specialist options for the No. 5, 6 and 7 role in the T20I batting lineup.

Murali Vijay’s 15-member India squad for T20 World Cup 2024: Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mayank Yadav, Y Natarajan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul