The BCCI announced India’s 15-man squad for the upcoming Asia Cup which gave hint on what the management is planning for the 2022 T20 World Cup. India made some bold decisions while picking the Asia Cup squad as they snubbed Mohammed Shami, Axar Patel and Sanju Samson while preferring Avesh Khan, Ravichandran Ashwin and Dinesh Karthik over them.
Several former cricketers and critics have raised questions about India’s selection policy and highlighted that picking Karthik for the finisher role who is going to bat only in the slog overs might not be the right way to go.
Karthik made a comeback to the Indian cricket team after an exemplary IPL 2022 season with Royal Challengers Bangalore. He scored 330 runs in 16 matches at an average of 55.00 while maintaining the strike rate of 183.33 as a finisher. On his return to the Indian team, Karthik has been given a specific role to bat in the slog overs to finish the innings. He has played a few impactful innings for India in recent times but playing the finisher’s role doesn’t guarantee you run in every match and it’s the same case with Karthik who failed to score big in every match.
Former India pacer Vivek Razdan feels that the selectors are blocking a spot for the veteran wicketkeeper and feels that several players in the team can also play the role finisher’s role.
“Picking Dinesh Karthik only as a finisher doesn’t seem quite right to me. You are blocking a spot for Dinesh Karthik. You tell me who among Suryakumar Yadav, Virat Kohli, Deepak Hooda, Hardik Pandya can’t do that job of a finisher?,” said Vivek Razdan on Fan Code.
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Meanwhile, former India captain Virat Kohli returned to the Indian team for the Asia Cup after a short break from the West Indies and Zimbabwe tour. While flamboyant opener KL Rahul also made a comeback to the team after recovering from injury and COVID-19. He has been appointed Rohit Sharma’s deputy for the Asia Cup. While pacer Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel were ruled out after sustaining injuries and are currently undergoing rehabilitation programmes at NCA.
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