New Delhi [India], July 8 : Former Indian cricketer Sourav Ganguly gave his verdict on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's exclusion from India's T20I squad for their upcoming tour of West Indies.
Rohit and Virat will be a part of the India team for the ODI and the Test series but they won't feature in the T20I series and Hardik Pandya will step up to lead the Indian team from the front.
While speaking to RevSportz, Ganguly said that in the end, the best players should be picked and it doesn't matter even if both players are not present in the Indian team.
"Pick your best players, it doesn't matter who they are. In my opinion, both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma still have a place in T20I cricket and I cannot see why a Kohli or a Rohit cannot play T20I cricket. Kohli was in great form in the IPL, and both have a place in T20 cricket, if you ask me," Ganguly said.
Both teams will lock horns for a five-match T20I series, the first of which will be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Trinidad, on August 3.
The second T20I will be played at the Guyana National Stadium, Guyana on August 6 while the third will be hosted at the same venue on August 8.
The fourth and the fifth T20I fixtures will be played at the Broward County Stadium, Florida on August 12 and 13.
India's T20I squad: Ishan Kishan (wk), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Surya Kumar Yadav (VC), Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya (C), Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.
He further went on to discuss the most talked about topic of the past few days - Bairstow's dismissal in the second Ashes Test.
In the second Test at Lord's, Bairstow left the final ball of Cameron Green's over alone to the wicketkeeper and started walking outside the crease assuming the ball was dead. However, an alert Carey realised there was an opportunity to run the batter out and effected a directed hit at the striker's end to catch Bairstow well short.
Ganguly revealed his views on the entire event and said, "It could have been avoided. By the laws, he was out as he just walked out of the crease, but I don't think he was trying to take a run. Australia could have avoided that dismissal."
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