Shillong, September 5: Today marks the eagerly awaited day for cricket enthusiasts as India prepares to unveil its 15-member provisional squad for the ODI World Cup 2023.
Chief selector Ajit Agarkar is scheduled to make the announcement at 1:30 pm IST during a press conference.
As per India Today, last week, Ajit Agarkar traveled to Sri Lanka for crucial discussions with captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid to finalize the squad. The squad is expected to include reserve players, considering the injuries that have impacted star players like KL Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah.
The deadline to reveal the provisional World Cup squad, set to commence on October 5 in Ahmedabad, is September 5. Teams have the flexibility to make changes to their squads until September 28.
Despite securing a spot in the Super 4s of the Asia Cup 2023 with a victory over Nepal on Monday, India faces uncertainties regarding the team composition for the World Cup. Rain interruptions during India’s group stage matches prevented the team from gaining a clearer understanding of their ideal lineup.
Following the win over Nepal, Captain Rohit Sharma explained that India had a preliminary idea of their World Cup squad before their Sri Lanka trip. However, the limited number of Asia Cup games and the weather conditions hindered their ability to finalize the squad.
“Look, when we came here, in the back of our minds, we knew what our 15 is going to be like. There were one or two spots that we wanted to have a look at, but we were very clear in our minds that the Asia Cup is not going to give us the complete picture of what the squad would be like because there were only two games that we had to play,” Rohit stated after his impressive unbeaten 74 against Nepal, which earned him the Player of the Match award.