Veteran all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin has complimented Suryakumar Yadav after the star hitter was named commander of India for the impending T20I series against Australia, beginning on Thursday, November 23. Suryakumar will lead the group without even a trace of ordinary chief Rohit Sharma, who has been refreshed India’s Reality Cup last loss to Australia, and bad habit skipper Hardik Pandya, who is down and out because of a physical issue. Any semblance of Rohit, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, among others have all been refreshed for the five-match series.
Suryakumar will lead the group while Ruturaj Gaikwad will be his delegate for the initial three T20Is. Shreyas Iyer will join the crew for the last two T20Is in Raipur and Bengaluru, separately, and he will assume control over the job of bad habit commander from Gaikwad.
Taking to Instagram, Ashwin wished Suryakumar, the no. 1 T20I player, “good luck” as gets set to lead India against Australia.
“Congratulations @surya_14kumar. Go well amigo. Distinction to lead the country,” Ashwin composed on his Instagram story.
India have just named three players from the new World Cup crew – Prasidh Krishna, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar himself.
In the mean time, for Australia, Aaron Hardie has been added to the crew after veteran opener David Warner pulled out of the series.
India crew: Suryakumar Yadav (Chief), Ruturaj Gaikwad (bad habit commander), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar
Australia crew: Matthew Swim (Capt), Aaron Hardie, Jason Behrendorff, Sean Abbott, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa.
