Favoritism over performance, Yeh hain India meri jaan

The announcement for India’s Asia Cup squad was awaited by the fans for long like the BCCIs

announcement for World Cup dates but finally it came out when Rohit Sharma along with chief selector

announced the 17 member squad along with a reserve player.

Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli , Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah , Mohammed Siraj were

certain to be picked once Bumrah was declared fit. There was a doubt if KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer would be picked since there was an injury cloud over them but since both have been picked, it’s presumed that both are fit and hence picked. Prasidh Krishna also was expected to be picked as he is the kind of bowler who is the hit the deck bowler and quick too.

But I am baffled to see Tilak Verma selected on the back of three knocks against West Indies that too in T20. And then Suryakumar Yadav who has yet to decode the 50 over format and averages 23 , yes he has won you many T20 games but does not know how to build an innings in the longer white ball

format. Then why not Sanju Samson whose performance is better than Surya Kumar in the 50 over

format and can keep too. But he is kept in the reserves if KL Rahul or Ishan get injured. This is like

handing over a candy to Sanju Samson and asking him to wait till it gets spoiled.

Picking Kuldeep against Chahar was due to the variety and Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur got the nod

because of their batting. But if I had to sum up India’s squad picked up, it has to be favoritism given the

nod for performance. Yeh hain India meri jaan.