Former Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batter Subramaniam Badrinath has reckoned that the Indian ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah’s inclusion is the biggest positive for the Indian team ahead of the Afghanistan T20I series.
The star pacer sustained an impact injury to his knee during the recent England ODI series and was subsequently ruled out of the two-Test tour of Sri Lanka in August. Though he has been named for the Afghanistan T20I series, his selection is subject to fitness clearance from the BCCI CoE.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Badrinath asserted that Bumrah himself could have insisted to the selection committee and team management to select him despite the Afghanistan series being a low-key affair.
“Bumrah’s return is a huge positive. It could also have been that Bumrah told the management that he wanted to play these three matches. Then they have to select him. We don’t know that. Bumrah might have spoken to Gambhir or the selection committee and said he wants to play because he hasn’t played cricket for long. So it could have been Bumrah’s option,” Badrinath said on his YouTube channel.
Sanju Samson, Arshdeep Singh and Axar Patel return to the squad after being rested for the most recent Zimbabwe tour. Rinku Singh, Prabhsimran Singh, Harsh Dubey, Suryansh Shedge, Ashok Sharma, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav and Yash Thakur have been left out of the squad that toured Zimbabwe.
Also, Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana and Washington Sundar have all been named for the three-game series, but are subject to getting fitness clearance ahead of the series.
India’s squad for Afghanistan T20Is: Shreyas Iyer (c), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma (vc), Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar*, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah*, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana*
Note: *Subject to fitness clearance
