Ruturaj Gaikwad named captain as India announce 15-man squad for Asian Games 2023

Ruturaj Gaikwad will lead the Indian team in the upcoming men's cricket event of the 2022 Asian Games. BCCI announced the list of 15 Indian players who will play in the upcoming multi-nation event. The selection committee also named five standby players.

IPL stars Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, and Prabhsimran Singh have earned their maiden national call-up. Meanwhile, the likes of Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma, and Washington Sundar have returned to the T20I set-up. The squad also features rising stars of Indian cricket Tilak Varma and Ravi Bishnoi.

Here is the full team:

Ruturaj Gaikwad (Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Shivam Dube, Prabhsimran Singh (wk).

Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, and Sai Sudharsan are the five names on the standby players list. In case any player from the main squad is injured or unavailable, one of these five names will take his place in the squad.

Can Ruturaj Gaikwad lead India to their first gold medal in men's cricket at the Asian Games?

Men's cricket has been a part of the Asian Games only twice. In 2010, Bangladesh won the gold medal by defeating Afghanistan in the final, whereas Sri Lanka beat Afghanistan to capture the gold in 2014.

This year, BCCI has decided to send a men's team to the Asian Games for the first time. Ruturaj Gaikwad has never captained in international cricket or IPL before. However, he has led Maharashtra well in domestic tournaments.

Besides, Gaikwad has spent a lot of time with MS Dhoni in the dressing room of the Chennai Super Kings. It will be interesting to see if he can lead the Men in Blue to a historic win in the Asian Games.