India’s Asia Cup squad was mostly on the expected lines, but there were a couple of surprises, including Shubman Gill being named the vice-captain of the T20I side and the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer. India take on the UAE in their opening game of the Asia Cup 2025 on September 10.
“It’s just unfortunate”, “no fault of his” have been the phrases used quite commonly and unusually frequently by the chief selector Ajit Agarkar at the team selection press conferences, whether it was before the T20 World Cup last year, the Champions Trophy earlier this year or most recently for the Asia Cup. It was for Rinku Singh the last time around and for Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shreyas Iyer on Tuesday.
“Who would you replace?” was the unanimous feeling amid some of the reporters in the press conference room and even by Agarkar if you read between the line. But from the place the question about Jaiswal and Iyer’s exclusion came from, it felt more like a surprise as it seemed like the season they had in the IPL and the intent they batted with consistently through 14-16 games, they both should have been the first names on the team sheet.
Instead, neither found a place. Iyer still might have a chance even though Agarkar reckoned that he would have to wait, but Jaiswal’s place has been taken by a batter, who is also the vice-captain now. It’s India’s Test captain, Shubman Gill, who has apparently become the blue-eyed boy of the selectors and the team management and is seen as a future leader across all formats in 2025. If that isn’t a surprising bit, listen to this: Gill hasn’t played a T20I for more than a year and now basically can’t be dropped.
So how does a Jaiswal or Iyer come back into the reckoning? Wait for someone to lose their form and among the vulnerables, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube probably top the list. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen, but if someone like Abhishek loses form, removing the World No.1 batter after one bad competition wouldn’t sit right with anyone; hence, ideally, apart from Suryakumar Yadav, everyone should be on that list.
Most of the first XI for the Asia Cup picks itself, but what would an alternate playing XI look like? Shreyas Iyer, captain, Yashasvi Jaiswal to open and Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna to lead the bowling attack. Who else gets a nod? Nitish Kumar Reddy comes back into the scheme of things, the IPL Orange Cap winner Sai Sudharsan should be in the mix definitely and the other couple of players in the standbys – Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel also will find their names on the team sheet.
‘Problem of plenty’ is a good headache to have for the selectors, but if performance is the sole criterion, the likes of Iyer and Jaiswal have every right to feel aggrieved as they did and have done everything asked of them but still can’t get into the team. Hopefully, better sense prevails as we get closer to the T20 World Cup.
India’s alternative squad in T20Is
Playing XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Reddy, Riyan Parag, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel, Ravi Bishnoi, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj, Khaleel Ahmed
Bench: Ishan Kishan, Mukesh Kumar, R Sai Kishore, Avesh Khan