ICC World Cup 2019: India Name Two More Players In Standby List

Team India, on Monday, announced their 15-man World Cup squad. without throwing too many surprises. There were a couple of surprises as the MSK Prasad-led selection panel picked Vijay Shankar ahead of Ambati Rayudu while leaving out Rishabh Pant for Dinesh Karthik. Those two selections is being discussed widely with many saying that the selectors did not got the call right in those two cases.

Later, both Pant and Rayudu made it to India’s standbys list for the World Cup. Along with the two, Navdeep Saini also made it to the standbys. And now veteran pacer Ishant Sharma and allrounder Axar Patel have also been picked as the reserves for the tournament in England and Wales. A BCCI official has said that all the five players have been informed that they are in the stand-by list and they should be ready to take the flight if and when needed.

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Interestingly, Saini will already be in England with the team to help the batsmen prepare for the tournament.

“Ishant, Axar, Pant, Rayudu and Saini are aware that they have been named stand-by. The board has informed them about this and while four of them won’t be travelling with the team like Saini, they have been asked to be ready to jump onto the plane whenever needed.

“We were looking at two batsmen, two pacers and a spinner when we decided to name the stand-by players. As you are aware, this year’s format will see every team competing against every other team in the tournament and covering the bases is very important in such long format tournaments,” the BCCI official was quoted as saying by Cricketcountry.

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Unlike Tests, Ishant has fallen down the pecking order in ODIs. He, however, has shown good form with the white-ball in the ongoing IPL. Moreover, Ishant has ample experience and is also well aware of how to bowl in England. He has toured the country thrice and had played an important part when India won the Champions Trophy in 2013.

Meanwhile, this year’s World Cup will see all the ten teams playing against each other once. The top four teams will then make it to the semifinals. The World Cup will start on May 30 with India opening their campaign on June 5 against South Africa.