T20 World Cup 2021: 3 Indian Players Who Might Be Benched Throughout The Tournament

T20 World Cup 2021: 3 Indian Players Who Might Be Benched Throughout The Tournament. The much-awaited T20 World Cup 2021 is just around the corner and all the teams are gearing up to exhibit their best performance. The Men in blue are placed in the Group B of the tournament alongside Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan and the other two qualifiers from Round 1. India will start their campaign with a high-voltage encounter against Pakistan on 24th October 2021.

Team India announced their 15-man squad for the big-ticket event on 8^th September 2021. There were some surprise inclusions in the form of Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel. Besides, the fans were also left perplexed with the exclusion of the likes of Yuvzendra Chahal, Deepak Chahar and Shreyas Iyer.

Amongst the 15-member squad picked by the selectors, a few of the players might not get the chance to play a single match in the entire tournament. Here’s a look at three of them.

T20 World Cup 2021: 3 Indian Players Who Might Be Benched Throughout the Tournament

3. Ishan Kishan

Touted as the star in the making, Ishan Kishan has been selected as the second wicket-keeper and the back-up opener in the squad for the World Cup. However, with Rishabh Pant being in good touch, he is unlikely to don the wicket-keeping gloves.

Also, KL Rahul has been in sensational form with the bat and it’s unlikely that he would sit out in any of the games in the perennial tournament. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are also going to bat at the top of the order and, keeping that in mind, Ishan Kishan is likely to be benched throughout the tournament.

After enduring a lean run for the most part of the second leg of IPL 2021, Ishan Kishan finished the season with a stellar knock of 84 runs off just 32 deliveries, including 11 fours and 2 sixes. That would have given him the world of confidence.

2. Axar Patel

Axar Patel’s inclusion in the World Cup raised quite a few eyebrows. He has been selected in the squad as a backup all-rounder to Ravindra Jadeja. Axar Patel provides a left-arm spin option and is a handy batsman down the order. However, Patel is unlikely to make it into the playing XI, keeping in mind Ravindra Jadeja’s sensational form in recent times.

Axar Patel made his T20 debut for India back in 2015. To date, he has managed to play 12 T20 internationals for India, picking 9 wickets at an average of 32.11.

1. Ravichandran Ashwin

India’s veteran spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin has been recalled to India’s T20 team for the ICC T20 World Cup 2021. Ashwin’s inclusion in India’s T20 World Cup side left everyone by surprise as perhaps nobody saw that coming.

The chief selector, Chetan Sharma reasoned that Ashwin’s consistent performances in IPL and Washington Sundar’s injury helped him return to wearing the blue jersey after four years.

“He has been performing well in the IPL. And an off-spinner will always be handy in UAE in a world tournament. Since Washington (Sundar) was unavailable, we decided to go with Ashwin,” Sharma said.

However, despite that, Ashwin is unlikely to feature in the playing XI as India already have a lot of talented spin-options in the squad, namely Varun Chakravarthy, Rahul Chahar and Ravindra Jadeja.