With Kedar Jadhav being declared fit, there will be no changes to India’s 15-man World Cup squad. There were apprehensions over Jadhav after he injured his shoulder during the IPL. The middle-order batsman had injured his shoulder while fielding for Chennai Super Kings in their last league game against Kings XI Punjab. He consequently missed the playoffs as well as the final as apprehensions grew all around.
However, chief selector MSK Prasad, on Monday confirmed that Jadhav has regained full fitness and would play the World Cup. Earlier reports had suggested that although Jadhav would travel with the team to the UK, he might miss the initial stage of the tournament. But Prasad has insisted Jadhav is fit and raring to go right from the start of the World Cup.
With Jadhav not fit, India are going to the World Cup with the same team that was announced on April 15. If Jadhav had failed to recover, the selection panel would have picked a replacement from the five standbys: Rishabh Pant, Ambati Rayudu, Ishant Sharma, Axar Patel and Navdeep Saini.
Meanwhile, the much-awaited tournament will get underway on May 30. Hosts England will lock horns against South Africa in a mouth-watering clash that will mark the start of this year’s World Cup.
There is also a new format in place for the forthcoming tournament. In this year’s tournament, the teams have not been divided into separate groups. Instead, all the ten teams will play against each other once before the top four teams make it to the semifinal. The winners of the semifinals will then take on each other in the final on July 14 at the Lord’s. It will be the fifth World Cup-final at the iconic ground.
Team India will be one of the favourites for the forthcoming World Cup. The Men in Blue have dominated the ODIs since the conclusion of the last World Cup in 2015. Unsurprisingly, the expectations are sky high from Virat Kohli & Co. as they look to bring the World Cup home.
India’s final World Cup squad:
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik
