India on Friday announced the squads for the Asian Games 2023 and surprised everyone by naming Ruturaj Gaikwad as the new T20I captain. very few predicted it Shikhar Dhawan He was expected to return to the national team setup to lead the Indian team in the multi-sport event starting September 2023 in Hangzhou, China.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is sending a team for the Asian Games events for the first time. But the schedule of the tournament clashes with the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 in India which begins on October 5. Hence, the BCCI is sending the men’s second row team and the women’s senior team to Hangzhou.
Gaikwad has already played for India in both the white-ball formats and is currently a part of the ongoing Test series against the West Indies. He made his international debut during the T20I series against Sri Lanka in July 2021, but due to the intense battle for top-order spots, he has been limited to only nine T20Is and one ODI so far.
The 26-year-old Maharashtra batsman first grabbed attention when he won the Orange Cap award in the Indian Premier League 2021 with Chennai Super Kings. He was the leading run-scorer for his team in the 2022 edition and then dominated the tournament again in the recently concluded season with 590 runs.
Twitter was flooded with reactions from fans after Gaikwad was named the captain of the Indian team. Many are predicting a future captaincy for the CSK star M S Dhonimost likely successor IPL Team.
Rinku Singh and Prabhsimran Singh are also included in India’s 15-man squad for the first time. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tilak Verma, who are part of India’s T20I squad for the upcoming series against the West Indies, also feature in the star-studded squad.
Team India squad for Asian Games: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Verma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Shivam Dubey, Prabhsimran Singh (Week)
Standby list of players: Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Sai Sudarsan