India men T20 team had a memorable first half of the year. Not only they are the champion of the T20 World Cup, they have also lost only one T20I game this year. After winning the series in Zimbabwe with a young team, they won in Sri Lanka 3-0 when most of the senior players are back. However, with the T20I retirement of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja and with Jasprit Bumrah’s workload management as a key priority, they need to ingest young talent in the team and that would be a priority for the new coach Gautam Gambhir.
Sri Lanka Series proved to be an easy assignment
This was the first series for team India after Suryakumar Yadav and Gautam Gambhir were appointed as India’s full time T20I captain and coach respectively. Surya finished the series as the ‘Player-of-the-series’ after playing some handy knocks. India showed a fresh approach especially during the Powerplay as the young duo of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill were keen on playing their shots. As a result, they posted 74 runs during the Powerplay in the first T20I which helped India to post a 200 plus total. Surya also scored a fifty and India won comfortably by 43 runs.
The second T20I was a rain-affected affaire but the Indians chased a target of 78 runs in 8 overs with ease as Jaiswal, Surya and Hardik Pandya all batted with a strike rate of 200 and above. The third T20I was an exciting affaire as Indian bowlers did great to defend a sub-per 137 to finish the match as Tie with Rinku Singh and Surya bowling the last two overs. Washington Sundar then bowled brilliantly in the Super-over to help India post a 3-0 score line.
Youngsters shine
Jaiswal has pretty much cemented his place in the T20 first XI for India. His range of shots and risk taking was rewarded as he scored at an impressive strike rate of 177.77 during the Sri Lanka series. This also helped Gill to play his natural game and it looks like they ae going to be India’s first choice openers in future. Riyan Parag also gradually making himself one of the regulars in the T20I team with his all-round contribution. Sanju Samson disappoints many after scoring two ducks in the two opportunities he got. This is a big blow for the Rajasthan Royals captain as the competition is fierce for the Wicket-keeper spot.
In bowling Ravi Bishnoi, Axar Patel and Sundar showed that India’s next generation of white ball spinners are ready. After the ODI series, Axar has further progressed in the race of becoming India’s primary spin bowling all-rounder. Pandya played couple of matches as pace bowling all-rounder and he will compete with Shivam Dube for that spot. The selectors may even test the uncapped Nitish Kumar Reddy in some of the upcoming series.
Arshdeep Singh also performed well and has 4 wickets to show from the two matches he played. Clearly, he would continue to be India’s primary left-arm pace bowler to support Bumrah. Mohammad Siraj did not have a good tour of Sri Lanka and will need to make a strong comeback. Otherwise India may try other young fast bowler options like Tushar Despande and Harshit Rana.
Other available options
Indian selectors have a happy problem in hand with many alternates available from the players pool. IPL did play a great role and they still have options like Abhishek Sharma, who scored a hundred in Zimbabwe but could not get a place in the Sri Lanka tour squad. Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul are relatively senior ones but it will be interesting to see whether they have any T20I future in not. Tilak Varma is injured and hence missed a call up to the Sri Lanka tour but he will also get his chance at some time. For time being, Rishabh Pant is the designated wicket-keeper but people like Dhruv Jurel and Jitesh Sharma also will be in contention along with Samson who has too much quality to fail consistently.
Mukesh Kumar and Avesh Khan were the leading pace bowlers during the Zimbabwe tour but was not part of the squad to Sri Lanka. They also would look to keep performing to enhance their claim for the future series.
Based on all the options available, an ideal India men’s T20I first XI should look like below,
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Suryakuma Yadav (capt), Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Riyan Parag, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh.
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