Blow for Ruturaj Gaikwad as Shubman Gill confirms opening pair for Zimbabwe series

Captain Shubman Gill has announced Team India's opening combination for the upcoming five-match T20I series against Zimbabwe. The series will be starting on Saturday (July 6).

The right-handed batsman will be leading a youthful Indian team in the series. With the T20 World Cup ending just a handful of days ago, the selectors have named a second-string side for the tour. The squad has as many as four uncapped players and no player from the T20 World Cup squad at least for the first two games.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, and Shivam Dube were named in the squad for the series. However, with the team's departure from Barbados after the World Cup win getting delayed due to a hurricane, the three players have been replaced by Harshit Rana, Jitesh Sharma, and Sai Sudharsan for the first two games.

It will be interesting to see whether Jaiswal, Dube, and Samson join the team for the last three T20Is or if the selectors decide against changing the squad.

Shubman Gill confirms the opening combination:

With as many as four openers named in the India squad for the Zimbabwe series, it was unclear who would open the innings. The four openers who were named in the team were captain Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Yashasvi Jaiswal. 

With Jaiswal out of the first two games, Gill, Sharma, and Gaikwad were in contention to open the innings. It was expected that Gaikwad would get the chance to open the innings with captain Gill ahead of uncapped Sharma. However, Gill has announced that he and Sharma would be opening the innings against Zimbabwe. Speaking to the media, the India captain also said that he wants to continue as an opener in the future as well.

Breaking- Shubman and Abhishek Sharma will
Open for India in Zimbabwe.

Shubman also says he wants to open for India going forward as well. @rohitjuglan reports.

— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) July 5, 2024

Sharma earned his maiden call-up from the Indian team after enjoying a stunning campaign in IPL 2024. He had scored 484 runs at a strike rate of 204.21. On the other hand, Gaikwad had finished the tournament as the second highest run-scorer, scoring 583 runs with the help of 1 century and 4 fifties. Gill had a decent outing too as he scored 426 runs including a century and 2 fifties.