New Delhi: Indian cricket team for the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy in England has been announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Following are the players selected for the tournament:
1. Virat Kohli(C)
2. Shikhar Dhawan
3. Rohit Sharma
4. Ajinkya Rahane
5. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk)
6. Yuvraj Singh
7. Kedar Jhadav
8. Hardik Pandya
9. Ravichandran Ashwin
10. Ravindra Jadeja
11. Mohammed Shami
12 Umesh Yadav
13. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
14. Jasprit Bumrah
15. Manish Pandey
Reserved Players: Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik
After a period of uncertainty, the BCCI had on Sunday finally confirmed India’s participation in ICC Champions Trophy 2017. While rest of the participating boards have already announced their squads abiding by the April 25 deadline, BCCI had been involved in a tussle with the International Cricket Council, leading to the delay.
The bone of contention was ICC’s new financial model which saw India’s revenue cut down from $570 million to from $293 million and forced BCCI to consider pulling out from the Champions Trophy resulting in the delay in naming the squad.
However, BCCI conducted a super general meeting on Sunday and cleared India’s participation for Champions Trophy. While it remains to be seen if the battle between the BCCI and the ICC is heading towards a truce, for now the Indian board wants to take it easy.
Check out the BCCI tweet regarding the squad here:
#CT #TeamIndia – Virat (C), Shikhar, Rohit, Rahane, MSD (wk), Yuvraj, Kedar, Hardik, Ashwin, Jadeja, Shami, Umesh, Bhuvi, Bumrah & Manish pic.twitter.com/pQOgpO9JNf
— BCCI (@BCCI) May 8, 2017
India are the defending champions at the tournament and they are eyeing to retain the trophy. India and Pakistan are once again paired in the same group with South Africa and Sri Lanka the other two. While Australia, England, New Zealand and Bangladesh are in group A. The men in blue” will take on Pakistan in their opening match of Champions Trophy 2017, on June 4.
Also, before Virat Kohli’s men take on Pakistan in a high-intensity encounter in their opening clash, India will play two warm-up matches against New Zealand (28 May) and Bangladesh (30 May).