ICC World Cup 2019: Gautam Gambhir names India's squad for the tournament

With just over a month’s time left for the teams to announce their World Cup squads, the anticipations are high. The fans have their fingers crossed and want their favourite players to feature in the squad. On the other hand, the cricket analysts have been busy putting their predicted squads out for the event. Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir also announced India’s predicted squad for the tournament and it has got some surprise inclusions and exclusions.

For the opening slots, Gambhir picked Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul along with Shikhar Dhawan. While Sharma and Dhawan are the trusted pair for the job, Rahul also caught with form lately. So, it will be quite a tough choice picking two players amongst this trio.

The squad will be incomplete without Virat Kohli in it and he could be batting at three. Then, he will have Ambati Rayudu and MS Dhoni following him up. Gautam Gambhir hasn’t picked both Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant. He feels that KL Rahul suffices as the backup wicketkeeping option.

Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya and Vijay Shankar are the three all-rounders in the squad picked up by the former opener. Interestingly, he has decided to omit Ravindra Jadeja in this category and instead picked up Ravichandran Ashwin. The off-spinner hasn’t played an ODI since 2017. But, the Delhi cricketer feels that Ashwin’s experience in England will help and feels that he can guide the young spinners.

Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal are the other two spinners in the squad that was picked by the 37-year-old Gambhir. Along with this duo, he picked up four pacers. While Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami are the obvious choices, he even opted for Umesh Yadav which springs up as another surprise.

Here is the 16-member squad picked by Gautam Gambhir:

Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Vijay Shankar

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