India to depart for Australia on October 6

The Indian team is all set to depart for Australia on October 6th. Notably, the team will be playing in the T20I series against South Africa until 4th October.

This also suggests that the main players will not be available for the ODI series. According to reports, Shikhar Dhawan is likely to lead the second-string ODI team that will play three matches against South Africa.

India will land in Australia on October 8th and will begin its training camp on October 13. The camp will take place in Perth.

After a week of training camp, they will take on Western Australia in a practice game. Then the team will lead to Brisbane.

The India team will play in a couple of warm-up games where they will take on Australia and New Zealand.

This Indian team consist of players who have no experience playing senior cricket in Australia. Interestingly, this list also includes Suryakumar Yadav. The top-order batter has been a mainstay in the team for a while now. However, he has never been to Australia and this T20 World Cup will be his first tour.

Harshal Patel and Deepak Chahar have played in Australia during their U19 stage in 2009. Similarly, Arshdeep Singh and Deepak Hooda were a part of U19 team that toured Australia in 2013. Other than that, all these players do not have a lot of experience or knowledge about the place.

As things stand, India are waiting on the fitness of Hooda and Bumrah, both of whom are currently at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru nursing back injuries. While Hooda was ruled out of the South Africa series entirely, Bumrah was only pulled out on Wednesday, the eve of the first T20I, after he complained of back pain.

While Deepak Hooda was ruled out of the South Africa series, Jasprit Bumrah was announced in the squad earlier but he was ruled out after suffering from an injury.

Bumrah missed out on the Asia Cup because of a back injury and came back to the Indian team only during the Australian series. The pacer did miss out on the 1st match. He looked completely out of rhythm in the next two matches. Immediately, he was ruled out of the South Africa series.

India are in Group 2 at the ICC event, alongside Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa and two qualifiers. Their opener at the MCG against Pakistan is on October 23.

India T20 World Cup squad: Rohit Sharma (capt), KL Rahul (vice-capt), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah*, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh.

Reserve players: Mohammed Shami, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Deepak Chahar.