Team India suffered a rare series defeat at home in ODIs after Australia prevailed in the decider in Chennai by 21 runs. While Suryakumar Yadav’s horror run continued and will be a talking point for a long time, India’s depth in the 50-over format has come under the scanner, especially with four first-choice players ruled out for a long period. Rishabh Pant is undergoing rehab after his car accident in December 2022, while Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out for a long time due to a back injury. Pacers Prasidh Krishna (stress fracture) and Jasprit Bumrah (back injury) too will be away from the game for some time and the bench was found out against a strong Australian team.
Shreyas Iyer’s injury recurrence during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy didn’t help as even though the hosts had a backup in Surya, he couldn’t place bat on ball in the whole series. Surya’s returns in formats apart from T20s have been abysmal and the team management and the selectors finally may give a look-in to Sanju Samson, who averages 66 in the format. Apart from Samson, another Indian youngster, who is part of the T20I side, Deepak Hooda too might return with Iyer set to stay on the sidelines for a long time.
Hooda could come in as a replacement for Iyer in the squad. Even though the likes of Rajat Patidar and Rahul Tripathi have been selected previously in the squad, they are unlikely to get in, given India play only six ODIs before the ODI World Cup apart from the Asia Cup.
The bowling department featuring four genuine pacers in addition to Shardul Thakur and Hardik Pandya and five spinning options including three all-rounders in Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar is set to remain the same as it was the batters, who failed to turn up against pace in the second game and spin in the decider.
India’s predicted ODI squad after IPL: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Sanju Samson, Deepak Hooda, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (vc), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umran Malik, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Jaydev Unadkat
