Analysing India Squad For The ICC T20 World Cup 2024

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have already announced the 15-member India T20 squad for the upcoming edition of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 scheduled to begin from 2 June, 2024 in the West Indies and USA. As previously revealed by the BCCI Secretary Jay Shah that Rohit Sharma will captain the Indian cricket team while seam-bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be his deputy in the forthcoming mega event. In their first match of the 2024 T20 World Cup, Team India will be taking on Ireland scheduled to take place at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York starting on 5 June, 2024. In this blog piece, we will be analysing the India squad named for the T20 World Cup 2024. 

SWOT Analysis on India squad for the ICC T20 World Cup 2024

Rohit Sharma (Captain), Hardik Pandya (Vice Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sanju Samson (WK), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.

STRENGTH

There were definitely a few surprises in the Indian team squad announced for the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024. While talking about the strength of this India's 15-member squad, the likes of skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Jasprit Bumrah are the largely experienced cricketers who have been part of the national team in the previous few editions of the Cricket World Cups. The presence of Rohit and Kohli definitely adds huge experience in the batting department as they have scored 3974 and 4037 runs respectively in the history of T20I cricket. Moreover, their inclusion provides a lot more solidity in the line-up with Rohit playing attacking cricket at the top and Virat playing the anchor role in the middle-order. Suryakumar Yadav will be the X-Factor in this batting order due to his superlative 360 degrees scoring range. 

India's pace bowling attack spearhead Jasprit Bumrah will once again play a key role as he has the ability to pick wickets at regular intervals and produce that magical delivery to deceive the opposition batters with his unorthodox bowling action. The Indian T20I team surely felt his absence in the pace bowling department during the last T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia. However, Bumrah will need some support from the rest of the bowlers in the T20I tournament. 

WEAKNESS

One of the major weakness of India's 15-man squad for the forthcoming T20I mega event is the current form of some players like Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Mohammed Siraj. As seen so far in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL 2024) season, Mumbai Indians captain Hardik has failed to contribute both with the bat and ball especially coming in from a long injury lay-off. On the other hand, the spin duo of Axar and Jadeja have not been that much consistent in this IPL 2024. Also, while playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, right-arm pacer Mohammed Siraj is leaking too many runs both in the powerplay and at the death. The team management will desperately be hoping that all of their India T20 World Cup squad-bound players get back in form in the upcoming IPL 2024 games. 

OPPORTUNITY

The upcoming T20 World Cup 2024 will be a massive opportunity for youngsters like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube to showcase their power-hitting skills at the grandest stage of all. Both these cricketers have batted amazingly well during the last few months both in the IPL and international cricket. Jaiswal has an amazing strike-rate of over 161 in the shortest format of the game while Dube is very much known figure in the cricket news to hit big sixes against spinners in the middle-overs. However, it will be really difficult for the team management to accomodate both these batters in the India playing XI. 

THREATS

The BCCI selectors have named as many as four spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav in the T20 World Cup 2024 India squad. With three frontline pacers in Bumrah, Siraj and Arshdeep Singh, India is expected to play with the combination of three spinners, two fast bowlers and Hardik Pandya being the sixth bowling option. There will always be the threat of spinners being taken down by the oppositions in some of the pressure situations. The other major threat in this India squad will be guys like Bumrah and Hardik who have had a lot of injury issues in the past. Therefore, it will be really important for the Indian team management to manage their workload throughout the mega event.