Suryakumar Yadav will be the captain and NCA head VVS Laxman will be the coach of the Indian team for the five-match T20 series against Australia. Shreyas Iyer will join the squad as vice-captain for the last two T20Is.
Ranked as the No. 1 batsman in T20Is, this is the first time Suryakumar will be captaining India. The decision comes after it became clear that Hardik Pandya, who suffered a bad ankle injury during the World Cup, is not likely to return to action in the next few months.
Paceman Prasidh Krishna, who replaced Pandya in the World Cup but didn’t get a game, has been included in the squad for this series, while all rounder Axar Patel, who missed the World Cup due to a quadriceps injury, has returned.
Apart from Surya, Ishan Kishan, who played only the first two games, Krishna and Iyer (last two T20Is), all the players who were a part of the Indian team which lost the 2023 ODI World Cup final to Australia have been rested to allow them to recover after a grueling campaign. Almost the entire Indian team for this series comprises those players who were a part of the gold medal-winning side at the Hangzhou Asian Games in October.
Curiously, experienced wicketkeeper-bat Sanju Samson and leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal have not made the cut. Apart from Laxman, the other members of the support staff are Sitanshu Kotak (batting coach) Sairaj Bahutule (bowling coach) and Munish Bali (fielding coach).
India squad for Oz T20Is: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vice-captain), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.
