Suryakumar Yadav's future in doubt as BCCI ignores him for probable Asian Games squad

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket board (BCCI) may well be preparing a succession plan to carry out a leadership transition in the T20I team. Current captain Suryakumar Yadav, who led India to a T20 World Cup title in March, doesn’t feature in the 30-man long list given to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for the Asian Games in due to be held in Aichi-Nagoya from Sept 19 to Oct 4.


The national selectors are due to give their first-choice 15 for the event by the second week of June. TOI has learnt that it was pre-decided that the selectors will look at captaincy options in the Asian Games when they were asked to prepare a list in Jan. BCCI will consult with the govt to decide if the first-choice T20 players are to be sent for the Asian Games.







The cricket event starts on Sept 23 and the Indian team is slated to play three ODIs against West Indies at home from Sept 28 followed by five T20Is from Oct 6. The long list contains all the big names including Jasprit Bumrah except Surya and Shubman Gill. Gill is supposed to lead the ODI team against West Indies. 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was already shortlisted in Jan.


The last date for making changes to the list was May 14. India are the defending champions. Ruturaj Gaikwad had led a young Indian team to an Asian Games gold medal in Hangzhou in 2023. Gaikwad too has been ignored for this edition.


As for Surya’s future, the selectors are likely to meet next week before India’s one-off Test against Afghanistan to pick the T20I and ODI teams for India’s tour of Ireland and England in June-July. The selectors may also finalise the Asian Games squad besides picking the India ‘A’ team for a first-class tour of Sri Lanka before India play a two-Test series there. It is learnt that Surya’s future will be in focus in the meeting. Surya has been woefully out of form in international cricket for two years and has struggled miserably in the IPL this year.


“The selectors are looking at possible captaincy options before taking a call on Surya. While Shreyas Iyer and Sanju Samson appear to be contenders, vice-captain Axar Patel’s name has also been floated to do the job before the selectors zero down on a clear successor. It will also be seen if Surya will be given another tour to rediscover his touch as a player. The next selection meeting will make things clear,” a BCCI source told TOI.


“It was decided in Jan that Surya will not be part of the Asian Games. The focus is on ODI World Cup preparations. There are a few players in the long list who play the ODI format too. The govt will prefer if the BCCI sends a full-strength team to the Asian Games. A call on the Asian Games teams will be taken after consulting the govt,” the source added.


Longlist to IOA: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Ayush Badoni, , Harsh Dubey, Dhruv Jurel, Khaleel Ahmed, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravi Bishnoi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Shivam Dube, Vipraj Nigam Nigam, Harshit Rana, Yash Thakur, Washington Sundar.
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