Shikhar Dhawan-led Indian contingent boarded their flight to Sri Lanka on Monday. Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) took to Twitter and shared pictires of the 20-man squad and the 5 net bowlers.
In a press conference on Sunday, captain Shikhar Dhawan and coach Rahul Dravid made it clear that several youngsters on the tour will be fighting for a place in the T20 squad for this year’s World Cup but winning the two white-ball series will be their primary goal.
Dravid also minced no words in admitting that not everyone in the squad will be getting a sure shot chance to play in the 6 matches.
“…I think it”s probably going to be unrealistic to expect us in a short tour like this with three games, or three one-dayers to give everyone an opportunity…and the selectors will be there as well,” Dravid declared in the pre-departure press conference.
“There are a lot of people in this squad who are pushing for places or looking to cement their places in the World Cup coming up, but I think the key goal of everyone in the squad and in the team…is to try and win the series,” the former India captain said,” the former Indua captain said.
Senior opener Shikhar Dhawan will lead the side in the 6-white ball matches (3 ODIs and 3 T20Is). Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been appointed as the deputy of Dhawan for the short tour.
The ODI matches will be played on July 13, 16 and 18 and T20I matches on July 21, 23 and 25.
Notably, Virat Kohli-led Indian Test team is currently in England and are now gearing up for the 5-Test series versus England from August 4.
India Squad for Sri Lanka Tour: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (vc), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya
Net Bowlers: Ishan Porel, Sandeep Warrier, Arshdeep Singh, Sai Kishore, Simarjeet Singh
