CWC 2019: One unlucky omission from each team's squad
The 2019 Cricket World Cup is scheduled to be played from 30th May to 14th July in England and Wales. This will be the fifth time that the World Cup will be played in England. Unlike those previous editions, the teams are not divided into groups.
There is only a single group consisting of all the teams with each team playing against the other once. The top four teams from the group stage will qualify for the knockouts. The first match will be played at the Oval while the final is held at the prestigious Lords. Eight teams automatically qualified based on ICC ODI rankings as on 30th of September 2017.
Afghanistan and West Indies were the two teams that made it to the list from the Qualifiers. All the teams were instructed to announce their 15-men squad by 23rd of April 2019. With the list coming out, let us look at surprise omissions from each team.
#1 India - Rishabh Pant
Rishabh Pant missed the bus as he was left out of the 15-member squad for the World Cup. Having played in 9 Tests, 5 ODIs and 15 T20s for India, he is believed to be the replacement for MS Dhoni. He made his international debut in the T20I against England in Bengaluru.
Even though he was a part of ODI squad against West Indies in 2017, he had to wait until October 2018 to play his first match. He played two more ODIs in the same series but failed to perform. Besides, he performed well against Australia and England in Tests with a century each.
Even though he performed well with the bat, his wicket-keeping skills came into scrutiny because of which Dinesh Karthik was preferred as the reserve keeper with the experience he carries.
#2 Australia – Peter Handscomb
The decision to exclude Peter Handscomb from the 15-member squad was very strange. Inc ase Alex Cary, who is selected. gets injured, they will be left with no one to stand behind the stumps. Also, if there was someone who deserved a spot in the team, it was Handscomb. It was him who sorted Australia’s middle order woes in the last 12 months.
Not only was he a good player of pace, he was also able to tackle spin bowlers easily. He was one of the main reasons for the series win against India in March. To support that, he has scored 479 runs at 43.55 in 11 matches after his return to the squad. To make place for Steve Smith, Handscombhad to sacrifice his place.
It's a surprise that Australia have not picked him as a backup wicket keeper.
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