Revealed: Why Tilak Varma and Sai Kishore were not picked in the Indian squad for Zimbabwe tour?

The BCCI on Monday, June 24, announced a 15-member India n squad for the upcoming tour to Zimbabwe. The tour consistents of five T20Is to be played between July 6-14. All the matches will be played in Harare. 

The BCCI selected a young group of players with Shubman Gill being named the captain of the team for the series. The senior players have all been rested. VVS Laxman will coach the team in the series. 

The recent performances in the IPL were given importance as the BCCI went about choosing the squad. While there were a few deserved selections, the absence of a few players raised eyebrows on BCCI's selection policies as well. 

The likes of Tilak Varma, Harshit Rana, Rahul Tripathi, and Sai Kishore were among the names not selected. The BCCI was targeted for its selection bias. However, the reason behind their non-selection is now out. The likes of Kishore and Varma are nursing injuries which is why they were not selected in the squad. 

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Reason Behind the Exclusion Of Tilak Varma

Some people wanted to know about R Sai Kishore and Tilak Varma. Both are currently nursing injuries and hence couldn't be considered for selection.#India#Cricket#Updates@BCCI

— Kushan Sarkar (@kushansarkar) June 24, 2024

The BCCI entrusted Gill with the responsibility of captaincy. This is the first time that he will lead the Indian team in any capacity. The batter leads the Gujarat Titans in the franchise. The franchise finished eighth under his leadership winning five games and losing seven, Two games ended in washouts. 

Shubman Gil finished the IPL season with 426 runs with one hundred and two fifty-plus scores. He was also with the Indian T20I side as a reserve. However, he along with Avesh Khan were sent back home from the Caribbean as India marched into the semi-finals. 

The upcoming tour to Bangladesh will be a good test for this young Indian side. There are a few debutants. However, all the players selected have plenty of experience of playing in the IPL and hence this series should be a learning curve for all the players. 

The bowling attack looks a bit more inexperienced. Avesh Khan, Khaleel Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar, and Tushar Deshpande are the four pacers included in the squad. While Tushar is still uncapped, the rest of the pacers have not played a lot of international cricket in recent times.

Avesh Khan who was with the Indian World Cup squad was sent back home. Washington Sundar and Ravi Bishnoi are the regular spin options with Abhishek Sharma and Riyan Parag also bowling part-time spin.

The players will be leaving for Harare in the first week of July to play in Zimbabwe. All the matches will be played in Harare and start from 4.30 pm IST which is 1 pm local time.

The two teams have played 8 T20Is so far with India winning six games and Zimbabwe two. The two teams last met in the T20 World Cup 2022 in MCG with India winning the match by 71 runs.

Before 2022, the two teams played a T20I series in Harare in 2016. India won the series 2-1 under the leadership of MS Dhoni. 

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