World Cup 2019: India's expected 30-man preliminary squad

A 50-overs World Cup hurries the heart and feeds the cricketing soul like no other competition in the gentleman’s game. One might find it possible to quantify the amount of excitement ahead of this tournament in other countries, but in India, the brouhaha and enthusiasm are a notch ahead when compared to the rest.

The Men in Blue managed to win the elite competition twice in 1983 and 2011 and lost one final to Australia in 2003. Indians managed to finish in the top four on six occasions, second only to the Kangaroos. In pursuit of a third triumph, Virat Kohli & Co. will travel to England in June 2019 and the selectors are already busy shortlisting the squad members.

All the teams are expected to submit their final 15-man squad list by the end of March 2019 or the first week of April. As it happens always, a 30-member probable list will be announced which will give an insight into how the main squad might shape.

This list is an indication given by the selectors to those cricketers who are on the peripheral edge of their plans, commanding them to raise their standards by the time the main squad is announced.

Here’s the predicted 30-man Indian squad for World Cup 2019:

Openers – Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal

Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma will be a part of the 15-man squad unless an injury sabotages their endeavours. There will be a fight for the other remaining spot between two or three players. The prime candidate as it stands to get the final nod from selectors is KL Rahul as he has been with the team for over four years now.

Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal don’t stand a chance in the current setup, but they will mostly appear in the probables list. Shaw has shown a lot of promise in recent times and it will not come in as a surprise if he makes his ODI debut in 2019. But for Mayank, the most he can achieve at this point in time is a spot in the probables list.