Asia Cup: Bumrah likely to play, Axar-Gill in vice-captaincy tussle

Shubman Gill is the flavour of the season after his stupendous show in the recent Test series against England but he will face a contender in Axar Patel for vice-captaincy in the Indian squad for the Asia Cup T20 scheduled in the UAE next month.

Also, pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah is set to play in the tournament and might be rested for the opening Test against the West Indies in early October.

The Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee is likely to select the squad for the Asia Cup on August 19 or 20 depending on when the Centre of Excellence’s (CoE) Sports Science team sends the medical bulletin of all players, including that of skipper Suryakumar Yadav, who has already started batting at the nets in Bengaluru.

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There will be some tricky selection calls but the Indian selectors would certainly like to maintain continuity which has given them a lot of success from the time Suryakumar took over as T20 captain.

While Axar was the designated vice-captain during India’s last series against England at home, Gill was the deputy when Suryakumar was first appointed full-time skipper of the T20 squad in Sri Lanka last year.

It is understood that the selection committee won’t be too keen to tinker with the set-up as Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Suryakumar, Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya form a solid top five.

“Abhishek Sharma is world’s No. 1 T20 batter in last ICC rankings. Sanju Samson has been fantastic last season with both bat and gloves. So it will certainly be a tough call but Shubman in current form (although in Tests) can’t be ignored. He had a good IPL also. Problem for selectors is, there are too many performers at the top of the order,” a BCCI source privy to developments told PTI.

With so many players in top-order, it would be very difficult to find a slot for Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan.

Even KL Rahul, who is now the first choice keeper in ODIs, is unlikely to be considered as he doesn’t bat in the middle-order.

Second keeper’s slot

While Samson is all but certain to be the first keeper, the choice for the second keeper’s slot will be between Jitesh Sharma and Dhruv Jurel. While Jurel was a part of the last T20 series, Jitesh had been impressive for RCB during their IPL winning campaign. He has also revelled in the role of a finisher.

Reddy unlikely to be fit in time

While Hardik Pandya remains India’s first choice white ball seam bowling all-rounder, Nitish Kumar Reddy, who suffered injury during the England series, is unlikely to get fit in time. Shivam Dube, who made a good comeback against England, is likely to find his place in the squad.

Axar and Washington Sundar are set to be the other two spin-bowling all-rounders in the squad.

Who will be third seamer, Prasidh Krishna or Harshit Rana?