World Cup 2019 : Gautam Gambhir picks R Ashwin in his Indian squad

What's the story?

Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has named his Indian squad for the 2019 ICC World Cup. The Delhi-born batsman's team looks pretty settled but it has a couple of surprises as well.

Gambhir has surprisingly picked Ravichandran Ashwin in his squad. At the same time, he has not considered left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja and young wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant for the World Cup.

The background

The ICC World Cup is just 4 months away and the Indian selectors have begun thinking about their 15-man squad for the tournament.

While it can be said that most of the spots have been occupied, there are many players in the race for a few slots in the squad. Also, a lot of experts have made their predictions for the Indian squad for the World Cup and Gambhir too joined the fray.

The heart of the matter

Gambhir has frequently expressed his desire to see Ashwin back in the ODI set-up in place of Ravindra Jadeja as he thinks that the dry pitches in England will help the off-spinners in summer.

During a recent media interaction in Bengaluru, Gambhir reckoned, "Both wrist-spinners (Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal) have done well in the last one year. But I still feel that R Ashwin is somebody we should look at. Obviously, a quality off-spinner is a quality off-spinner. I’ve always believed that a quality spinner is a quality spinner – irrespective of whether he is a wrist-spinner or a finger-spinner."

Gambhir decided to exclude Pant from the squad as he had already picked 2 wicket-keepers in MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik for the World Cup.

Gambhir's World Cup Squad: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav

What's next?

India are currently 2-0 up in the 5-match ODI series in New Zealand. With India set to play 8 more ODI matches before the World Cup, it will be interesting to see if Ashwin makes a comeback to the team.

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