Former Indian chief selector MSK Prasad opined that another pacer in the line-up would’ve been handy for the Indian side, with India heading into the T20 World Cup with just three genuine pacers.
The selection committee headed by Chetan Sharma, decided to pick five spinners in the squad and the only speedsters in the squad were Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Hardik Pandya, who hasn’t bowled an awful lot in recent months, is expected to be fit to fulfil all-round duties for the side.
The chief selectors also went with two pacers among the three reserves options. Besides Shreyas Iyer, the two other reserve options are Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar. MSK Prasad feels one more pacer in the line-up would’ve been handy for the side. Plenty of experts and fans backed Shardul to find a place in the squad because of his form, but selectors felt otherwise.
“It is a decent squad but I feel that they are one fast bowler short actually… because we are playing the majority of the matches in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, so maybe one more fast bowler could have been handy.
We don’t exactly know, but in an ideal scenario, Hardik has been picked as an all-rounder, I would love to see him bowling”
Prasad said as quoted by Cricket.com.
The former Indian selector also added that Pandya not bowling regularly in the IPL is a bit concerning for the team.
Speculations around Hardik’s fitness are yet to be trashed, which means the Indian skipper Virat Kohli will be having some issues if any of Hardik’s problems resurface. All the teams have time until October 10 to make any final changes to the squad.
India will open their T20 World Cup campaign with a clash against arch-rivals Pakistan on October 24. They are grouped alongside Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan and two other sides that will make their way through the qualifiers.
