India look to put World Cup heartbreak in rearview mirror

NEW DELHI, November 21

Middle order batsman Suryakumar Yadav will captain India when they host World Cup vanquishers Australia in a five-match T20 series starting on Thursday.

Opener Ruturaj Gaikwad will act as vice-captain for the first three matches in the series before top order batter Shreyas Iyer takes over for the last two games.

SCHEDULE

• 1st T20I I November 23 I Visakhapatnam
• 2nd T20I I November 26 I Thiruvananthapuram
• 3rd T20I I November 28 I Guwahati
• 4th T20I I December 1 I Raipur
• 5th T20I I December 3 I Bengaluru

Suryakumar and Iyer are among four players backing up from the World Cup squad along with wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan and seamer Prasidh Krishna.

Left-arm spinner Axar Patel, who missed the Asia Cup and World Cup with a quadriceps strain, has been given a chance to make his return to international cricket.

Warner withdrawn

Australia opener David Warner has been withdrawn from the series. The lefthander was Australia’s leading scorer with 535 runs at an average of 48.63 during their run to a sixth World Cup title.

Emerging Western Australian all-rounder Aaron Hardie has replaced Warner in the squad after making his ODI and T20I debuts during the recent tour of South Africa.

Warner hopes to finish his Test career at his home Sydney Cricket Ground against Pakistan in January but has put his hand up for more international white-ball cricket, with the T20 World Cup coming up next year.

Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins and fellow fast bowlers Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc are also heading home from India along with all-rounders Cameron Green and Mitchell Marsh.

Matthew Wade will captain the squad for the five-match series. Fast bowler Kane Richardson has been called up as a replacement for the injured Spencer Johnson.

Just seven of Australia’s World Cup-winning squad will play the T20s. — Reuters

Squads

India: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Shreyas Iyer (last two matches only)

Australia: Matthew Wade (c), Aaron Hardie, Jason Behrendorff, Sean Abbott, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa