India’s squad for the much-awaited tour to South Africa will be named on Monday after the end of day’s play between India and South Africa, a BCCI release confirmed. The All-India Senior Selection Committee will meet in New Delhi to pick the team for the upcoming T20I series against Sri Lanka as well.
The three T20 Internationals will be held on December 20, 22 and 24 at Cuttack, Indore and Visakhapatnam respectively.
It was earlier expected that the teams would be named on Monday last week, but only the ODI squad for Sri Lanka was named, with Virat Kohli being rested.
It is expected to be a 17-member squad that will travel to South Africa and the main call will be whether India would go with four frontline pacers and three specialist spinners or five specialist pacers with two slow bowlers.
Jasprit Bumrah, who has been India’s key pacer in white ball cricket, is certainly in contention for a slot for the extra pacer. The four pacers – Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav are automatic picks.
It was earlier reported that following Kohli’s concerns about lack of preparation time, a decision will be taken whether some of the Test specialists could be sent to South Africa early to acclimatise with the conditions.
The other issue that needs addressing is preparation for the South Africa series.
With both Tamil Nadu and Saurashtra out of Ranji Trophy, the likes of Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara, who are automatic picks in the Test squad, won’t have any game time post the third Test against Sri Lanka in Delhi.
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