CHENNAI: As the senior men's selection committee announced the squad for the three T20Is against Afghanistan in New Delhi, focus has once again shifted towards India's injury concerns with four out of 15 are subject to clearing fitness tests.
The squad named itself is almost similar to that of the original team named for the England series with Sanju Samson making a comeback after missing the Zimbabwe tour. However, availability of four players, including Jasprit Bumrah and Washington Sundar, is subject to fitness. The other two players, who are yet to be fit are Nitish K Reddy and Harshit Rana. While Bumrah and Washington got injured during the ODI series against England, Harshit was ruled out during the T20Is against England. Nitish has been out of action from before.
The aspect of subject to fitness has grabbed limelight once again because Bumrah was named initially for the Sri Lanka tour before being ruled out. Washington was initially ruled out of the first Test but kept in contention for the second, but he could not get fit in time. This led to a lot of speculation in the lead up to the Test series, shifting the focus on the BCCI Centre of Excellence and long list of injuries. BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia and head of cricket, CoE VVS Laxman had a meeting at the facility and addressed the media. At that time, when asked about the subject to the fitness list in the recent squads, Saikia had said that the players deserve the time to make the cut in time if that was possible. "Three weeks or four weeks before, we do not know the exact status of the player. Therefore, that asterisk subject to fitness is given because that particular player is under a programme of rehabilitation. If he gets picked within that period of 21 days or 28 days, he will be taken into the team. So that is precisely why we do not outrightly reject him on the date of selection. But by the time it will be effectively required for travel or to play the match, by that time he may be totally picked. It is a human body. It is not a machine. So he may take 14 days, or he may take 28 days, subject to his own body composition," Saikia had said at the time.
Now, with less than two weeks to go for the three-match series against Afghanistan, it remains to be seen how many of the four make the final cut by the time the first T20I is played on September 13.
Squad: Shreyas (C), Abhishek, Vaibhav, Samson (WK), Kishan (WK), Tilak (VC), Dube, Nitish*, Axar, Washington*, Varun, Bishnoi, Bumrah*, Arshdeep, Rana* (*Subject to fitness).
