It has been pre-decided that the BCCI will need to select two separate T20 teams as India’s home white-ball series against the West Indies overlaps partly with the quadrennial extravaganza.
India’s current T20 skipper Suryakumar Yadav, along with Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill, are the two prominent names missing, while teen sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been inducted into the 30-strong longlist of men’s probables that the BCCI has submitted to the IOA for the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya from September 19 to October 4. It has been pre-decided that the BCCI will need to select two separate T20 teams as India’s home white-ball series against the West Indies overlaps partly with the quadrennial extravaganza.
The West Indies series comprises eight white-ball games — three ODIs and five T20Is — between September 27 to October 17. Since Gill is expected to lead the team in ODIs, he hasn’t been picked for the Asian Games.
While some players are common in both ODIs and T20Is, men’s cricket event at the Asian Games will take place between September 24 to October 3, forcing the selectors to create a bigger pool to pick two teams.
It is understood that Suryakumar is no longer in the larger scheme of things as far as 2028 Olympic Games and the next T20 World Cup is concerned, and his name not featuring in the Asian Games longlist is a no-brainer.
The captaincy candidates in that Asian Games list would be Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson and Tilak Varma.
The list of bowlers has Jasprit Bumrah’s name in it although ODIs could be his priority at that point in time taking the 2027 World Cup into account.
Harshit Rana is expected to be fit by then and has been kept in the long-list along with Prasidh Krishna and Arshdeep Singh.
Among spinners, the frontline slow bowlers Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar and Harsh Dubey have made it to the list, but only two of the four are expected to be picked. The other two will play the Windies series.
Surprisingly, the only prominent non-performer to make the list is gold medal-winning skipper from the Hangzhou edition — Ruturaj Gaikwad.
