- By Namrata Vijay
- Thu, 02 May 2024 02:19 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
ICC T20 World Cup 2024: The BCCI on Tuesday announced Tema India's 15-member squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup, scheduled to be played in June this year. The squad raised many eyebrows and debates over the inclusion and exclusion of several players started to gain momentum. The inclusion of Shivam Dube has prompted praise from cricketing pundits, however, the exclusion of CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad has gained strong reactions from veteran India cricketers.
Chennai Super Kings skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad scored fifty against Punjab Kings and is currently the orange cap holder in IPL 2024, surpassing Virat Kohli. He has scored 509 runs in 10 matches at a strike rate of 146.68. He has also scored a century and five fifties till now. As far as the Indian openers are concerned, Gaikwad has scored more runs than Shubman Gill (320), Rohit Sharma (315) and Yashasvi Jaiswal. But despite all this, Gaikwad wasn’t included in the 15-member squad for the mega-event and his name was also not there in the reserve player list.
Criticizing BCCI for not including Gaikwad in the 15-member squad and the reserve players list, former World Cup-winning star Krishnamachari Srikkanth accused the selectors of favouritism. During an interaction on his YouTube channel, Srikkanth flagged Gill’s inconsistency and said that the selectors did favouritism.
"Shubman Gill is totally out of form, but why is he selected for the team? There's no doubt that Ruturaj Gaikwad deserves a place. He scored more than 500 runs in 17 innings. Also, he scored a century against Australia. Shubman Gill is the selectors' delight. He gets a chance even if he fails. He finds a place even if he fails in Test, ODIs, and T20s. There's too much favoritism in selection. The team selection is all about favoritism," K Srikkanth was quoted as saying on his YouTube channel.
Apart from Ruturaj Gaikwad, KL Rahul is another player to have missed out on the squad despite being the first-choice wicket-keeper batter for the ODI World Cup last year. Shivam Dube has been selected purely based on his batting prowess since the last year. Although Riyan Parag didn’t make it to the squad, his RR skipper Sanju Samson has been included.
Ruturaj Gaikwad will regret missing out on the squad. He has shown immense potential after taking over the CSK captaincy from MS Dhoni. CSK is lying in fourth position in the points table and will aim to qualify for the playoffs this time as well.