Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have named one change in their ICC T20 World Cup squad. Calling up the fast-bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur, and leaving out Axar Patel.
Axar, the spin-bowling all-rounder, will now join the list of standby players. It is the only change to the Indian squad so far ahead of the 15 October deadline.
Shardul Thakur has played 22 T20s for India and has bagged 31 wickets. Lately, he has emerged as a reliable batter lower down the order after twin fifties against England at The Oval.
In the shortest format of the game, he is someone who can use the long handle of the bat, indicated by his strike of 197.14 in the five innings he has batted in the T20s.
In their release, BCCI also confirmed that Avesh Khan, Umran Malik, Harshal Patel, Lukman Meriwala, Venkatesh Iyer, Karn Sharma, Shahbaz Ahmed and K Gowtham would all be part of the bio-bubble to assist the squad in the preparations for the T20 World Cup.
India squad
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami
Stand-by players: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Axar Patel