3 Players Who Could Be Dropped From India's T20I Squad For West Indies Series

Team India are currently auctioning for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia. Witha another bilateral series round the corner, the management will be tempted to try out various options as they look to settle the puzzle in a bid to lift their second world cup trophy in the shorter formats.

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Since the ICC World Cup in England, the Men in Blues have won three consecutive series – West Indies, South Africa, and Bangladesh. The Bangla Tigers had India in a tricky situation winning the first match, but the host bounced back to win the series 2-1.

Virat Kohli & Co will hope to continue their winning as they prepare for the mega event. India will play West Indies at home in three T20Is starting from December 6 followed by the same number of ODIs. With most of the side looking settled, the management is likely to tinked with three-four spots to see the best available options before finalising.

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We at Cricket Addictor will take a look at three cricketers who can lose their place in the squad for the upcoming series against West Indies:

Read More: India vs Bangladesh 2019: 1st Test – India’s Predicted Playing XI

Rishabh Pant

The young wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant has been the most debated topic in Indian cricket in the last few months. He has been at the hot seat ever since the World Cup when MS Dhoni went to a sabbatical. But the promising cricketer has failed to live upto the expectation.

Fitting onto the footsteps of Dhoni is not an easy job and Pant is feeling all the pressure from outside which has impacted his game. The young cricketer has lost his natural flow and the wicket-keeping has also hit an all-time low. While the management and skipper have stood by him, nothing seems to work right for Rishabh Pant.

The selectors might ponder giving Pant a break from the upcoming series against West Indies. With Sanju Samson waiting in the wings, it will be a perfect opportunity for the management to take a look at different options on offer.

Pant needs to back to his basics and put his head down and concentrate on what he does the best to regain his form back before making another comeback to Team India.

Shikhar Dhawan

Shikhar Dhawan has been one of India’s finest opening batsman. His partnership with Rohit Sharma at the top has been one of the significant reasons behind Virat Kohli & Co’s dominant run across the format. Especially, Dhawan’s performance in the ICC tournaments has been eye-catching.

But the southpaw has lost the Midas touch in recent times. Since his ouster from the Test side, Dhawan confidence has gone down. He has failed to put big scores in the last three T20I series’ India have played following the 50-over World Cup in England.

The recently-concluded series against Bangladesh was the best opportunity for Dhawan to cement his berth but the Delhi cricketer failed to post a sing 50+ score in the three games. Also, his strike-rate was below 100 which is considered poor in this format of the game.

And with KL Rahul notching up a timely half-century in the final match of the series when India needed the most, Shikhar Dhawan is likely to lose his place in the playing XI. Rahul is likely to slot alongside Rohit Sharma at the top while skipper Virat Kohli will come back to bat at three.

Khaleel Ahmed

India have been in search of a left-arm pacer for quite some time now. After Zaheer Khan, they have lacked a quality left-armer. The emergence of Khaleel Ahmed brought a ray of hope that the search might come to an end.

He impressed in his debut outing for India during the Asia Cup, but since then, has been mild and has failed to replicate his efforts with the ball. Despite his poor performance, the management wanted to give him a longer run helping him to acclimatise at the highest level.

But Khaleel has failed to live up to the expectation. In the recently concluded series against Bangladesh, the Rajasthan-born fast bowler once again failed to step up. The 21-year-old returned with two wickets from three matches and went for too many runs in the absence of senior fast bowlers.

With the ICC T20 World Cup 2020 looming large, India would want to bring their first-choice bowlers back in the set-up and settle the combinations as Khaleel Ahmed seems not fit for the desired role.