T20 World Cup squad: Pant returns, Dube, Samson, Chahal make the cut. Rinku, Gill, Rahul miss out
ICC T20 World Cup out of the way here and now.
Rinku Singh can consider himself the unluckiest cricketer on the planet. He is, by some distance, India’s most destructive finisher. That job is arguably the toughest in T20 cricket. In 15 T20Is, Rinku averages 89 and scores at a strike rate of nearly 177.
Additionally, he is the only player to hit five sixes in the final over a T20 chase, when he won the unlikeliest of games for the Kolkata Knight Riders against the Gujarat Titans in 2023.
The unfortunate thing about the finisher’s role in T20 cricket is that they get too few balls to display their talent. And when opportunities do come up, it is in extreme circumstances under incredible pressure. And yet, Rinku has managed to deliver.
While Rinku may still make it into the squad, by virtue of being a reserve, if someone gets injured, his fate was effectively sealed when the selectors opted to include Yashasvi Jaiswal in the mix, on top of Rohit Sharma and Viral Kohli. While Jaiswal plays a completely different role, there was simply no room in the squad for Rinku.
This selection is not one merely of performance and potential, not only in T20Is and the Indian Premier League, but a revelation of the philosophy the think tank has chosen to go with.
Rohit and Virat, two titans of the game, do not and possibly cannot, approach the game as fearlessly as some of the youngsters who have grown up in the IPL era.
But, India has decided, that while Rohit and Virat may be batting in a manner that is outdated in T20 cricket,
