The T20 World Cup defense squad for India doesn’t hold any surprise. All the major elements expected to be in the team have found out a favor of the selectors. Performance or no performance in the ongoing IPL doesn’t matter. I doubt that now how much motivation is to be taken away by the fringe players like Karan Goel, Abhishek Nayar etc. The major stars of the Indian team have not delivered in the tourney and the form of some of the big names is going to be a big worry ahead of the title defense. More so for the skipper, Sehwag and Gambhir. It’s a relief to see no Munafa and no Karthik in the team even though the lad has performed well for Delhi in the IPL. Munaf was waiting to be axed and it is the right step. Uthappa had a chance to be in the reckoning but he messed up with his chances in the first 6 games with Royal Challengers.
Yesterday’s innings came a bit too late. Jadeja, Ojha, Praveen Pehelwan, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma are the new faces that are in the team from the 2007 team which won the title. The ones to miss out the bus from that team are Agarkar (no longer in national radar), Joginder Sharma (same), Sreesanth (injured or disciplined don’t know. One can still find him break dancing in the KXIP dug out) and Uthappa.
The starting XI could well be:
Sehwag
Gambhir
Raina
Yuvraj
Dhoni
Sharma
Pathan Y
Harbhajan
Pathan I / Ishant
Zaheer Khan
RP Singh
RP Singh was the most deserved entrant after an impressive show in the first 6 games of IPL for Deccan. Based on the current form the semi-finalists would be India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.
