BCCI chief selector on why Yuzvendra Chahal didn’t make the India WT20 squad

The Board of Control for Cricket in India‘s (BCCI) chief selector Chetan Sharma, in a press conference, shortly after the announcement of Team India’s 15-man squad for the men’s T20 World Cup explained the reason why some of the names were included in the squad and why were some excluded.

Amid the names that made big news was the exclusion of Shikhar Dhawan and Yuzvendra Chahal. Explaining why Rahul Chahar was preferred over the seasoned Chahal, Chetan said that they were looking for a quick bowler.

“We had a discussion over Yuzvendera Chahal and the selectors thought was we need a bowler, who can bowl fast, and as we have recently seen Rahul Chahar bowling, the speed that he bowls with, the selectors thought that we need such a player, who can on those wickets, can hold and more speed, and so, there was a lot of discussion about Chahal, but we zeroed on Rahul Chahar,” he said.

In his international career, Chahal played 49 T20Is and picked up 63 wickets. He has the best bowling figure of 6/25, two four-wicket hauls and one five-wicket haul.

As for Dhawan, the chief selector said that the left-handed batsman remains a “very” important part of India’s limited-overs set up.

“Shikhar Dhawan is a very important player for us, he was the captain in Sri Lanka. What discussion happened I cannot disclose. He is important and he is there in the loop,” he said.

“But the need of the hour was that we look at other players and give Shikhar Dhawan some rest, otherwise he is an important player and he will be back very soon,” the chief selector added.

Team India squad

Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami.

Standby players: Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar.