The Ajit Agarkar-led national selection committee will meet BCCI secretary Jay Shah in Ahmedabad on Tuesday to finalize the 15-member squad for the ICC T20 World Cup in America, but the official announcement could happen a day later. The BCCI secretary is the chairman of the senior selection committee (men) and with Shah busy with his political commitments, it is understood that the meeting will take place in Ahmedabad.
The position of the second wicketkeeper and the position of all-rounder Hardik Pandya in the side will be the two talking points of the selection meeting.
Clearly, KL Rahul (IPL strike rate of 144 and 378 runs so far) and Sanju Samson (385 runs at a strike rate of 161) are still locked in a battle for the second wicketkeeper's spot.
Rajasthan Royals captain Samson is performing consistently for his IPL side for the first time in over a decade, but there is no way his No. 3 batting will earn him a place in the Indian team.
Another school of thought is that someone like Samson, who has 25 T20Is to his name but an average of just 20 and a strike rate of around 135, should not be considered based on just one good IPL season.
In Rahul's case, it can be said that a senior member of the coaching staff will certainly do everything possible to promote his participation, but many feel that the stylish right-handed batsman's approach to T20 cricket remains archaic.
However, he is still considered a better bet than Samson at number 5 or 6 on slow Caribbean tracks.
The other option, Jitesh Sharma, is in very poor form, while Dhruv Jurel has no chance of keeping wickets. During the last match in Lucknow, he got a chance to bat at long on and scored a fifty.
Left-handed batsman Tilak Varma, who is also a handy off-spinner, remains an option, along with pacer Sandeep Sharma, the Punjab veteran whose slower variations at the death have played a big role in Rajasthan Royals' rise to the top of the IPL table.
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