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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been planning for the upcoming series, including the Asian Games, where India will play as the defending champions.
The 2026 Asian Games are scheduled to start on September 19. Ahead of that, the board will have to announce the squad, which will be in the campaign to defend the gold medal the team earned under the leadership of Ruturaj Gaikwad.
Suryakumar Yadav is not in the extended list of players
According to an Amar Ujala report, BCCI has finalized a list of 30 probables for the Asian Games, which will be held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. The report suggests that the T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav is not included in the 30 probable players list.
Which means the Men in Blue will defend their title under a new leader. Ruturaj Gaikwad, under whose leadership the Indian cricket team claimed the title, is in the extended list of players.
Most of the core players are in the list
It is claimed that the probables include 13 cricketers from the 15-member T20 World Cup-winning team. Star players like Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Sanju Samson, Tilak Varma, and many other key players are included in the list. If the claims are to be believed, then the board will pick the squad from these 30 players.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Yash Thakur, Vipraj Nigam, Anukul Roy, and Harsh Dubey are also in the line-up as the emerging players. Sooryavanshi’s name in the list suggests that BCCI is likely to give the southpaw, who took the ongoing IPL 2026 season by storm, his debut cap for the senior men’s cricket team.
The report further suggests that Gautam Gambhir, Team India’s head coach, could skip the Asian Games, as at the same time, the team will have to face the West Indies for an ODI series. India will face the West Indies for a 3-match ODI series starting from September 27 and will be concluded on October 3.
Team India to get a new coach?
The ODI team will be led by the skipper, Shubman Gill. For this series, the board will have to announce a separate team. If Gautam Gambhir skips the Asian Games, then who will be the coach for the team in Japan?
According to the report, in place of Gambhir, BCCI can select VVS Laxman, the Head of Cricket at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), as the coach for the Asian Games. However, there is nothing finalized yet. First of all, BCCI will have to select the final squad for the tournament from the list of 30 players.
List of 30 Probable Cricketers: Ishan Kishan, Varun Chakravarthy, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Abhishek Sharma, Anukul Roy, Arshdeep Singh, Axar Patel, Ayush Badoni, Dhruv Jurel, Hardik Pandya, Harsh Dubey, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah, Khaleel Ahmed, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Reddy, Prasidh Krishna, Ravi Bishnoi, Rinku Singh, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sanju Samson, Shahbaz Ahmed, Shivam Dubey, Tilak Varma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Vipraj Nigam, Washington Sundar, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Yash Thakur.
