Unmukt Chand back in the Delhi T20 squad

Former Under-19 World Cup winning captain, Unmukt Chand returns to the Delhi T20 squad in a surprising turn of events. Hailed as the ‘next-big-thing’, Unmukt failed to emulate his success back then into the next level. He was regarded the next Virat Kohli. But, he has now completely lost in the race. He is now finding it tougher to make it into his state team.

The former India U19 captain was dropped from the squad after some ordinary outings in the group stages of Ranji Trophy 2017-18. Chairman of selectors Atul Wassan justified their decision citing complacency as the reason for the exclusion of some of the players and that it has paid off since the team has qualified for the Super League stage of the T20 tournament.

“See everyone was getting complacent. We wanted to get rid of that complacency and hence took the calls of drafting youngsters for the group stage. They all did well and things panned our way as we qualified for the Super League stage. Both Unmukt and Milind (Kumar) are coming in for similar players (Sarthak and Himmat Singh) so it wasn’t a tough call,” said Wassan.

Chand recalled

Chand made it back to the Delhi T20 squad for the second half of the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy. The Under-23 One-day tournament is clashing with the T20 Super League stage. To strike the right balance, the senior selection panel made an effort not to restrict the players to the bench.

The players who weren’t a certainty in the playing XI have been demoted to the U23 level. Only Lalit Yadav, who is also eligible for U23, held on to his spot while Sarthak Ranjan, Hiten Dalal and Tejas Baroka were demoted to the Himmat-led U23 squad.

“It’s a great place for Delhi cricket to be in. We now have a replacement for every player ready and have identified our core lot too. The message to the rest is also loud and clear. We don’t need the 30s or 40s or the odd fifty. We need players to be consistent and the ones who do the job for us when it matters,” said Wassan.

Delhi T20 squad: Pradeep Sangwan (C), Gautam Gambir, Rishabh Pant (wk), Nitish Rana, Dhruv Shorey, Pawan Negi, Subodh Bhati, Kulwant Khejroliya, Navdeep Saini, Lalit Yadav, Milind Kumar, Varun Sood, Unmukt Chand, Vikas Tokas, Kshitiz Sharma

Delhi U23 squad: Himmat Singh (C), Anuj Rawat (wk), Sarthak Ranjan, Hiten Dalal, Jonty Sidhu, Rajesh Sharma, Mohit Dalal, Shivank Vashisth, Tejas Baroka, Gourav Kumar, Simarjeet Singh, Ajay Ahlawat, Pranshu Vijayran, Harsh Tyagi, Vikas Dixit

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