The Indian cricket team is scheduled to play five T20 matches against the South African cricket team soon after the completion of IPL 2022. The Men in Blue have a hectic schedule ahead as they will tour England and Ireland after the home series against the Proteas. Because of the upcoming tour, reports have claimed that the selectors will announce two separate Indian squads. Wasim Jaffer recently made his selection for the South Africa T20I series.
Jaffer left out the Test squad members, acknowledging the report that they will be on the tour of England. Since Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant will likely miss the series, Wasim Jaffer felt Hardik Pandya will be the right man to lead the Indian cricket team in the series against the South African cricket team.
Here’s what the former Punjab Kings batting coach said during an appearance on CricTracker’s ‘Not Just Cricket’ show:
“Hardik Pandya has done well as a leader in IPL 2022 and will be my captain.”
Hardik Pandya surprised everyone with his excellent leadership in the 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League. He led the Gujarat Titans to the top of the points table in their debut season. Fans should note that GT did not seem the strongest team on paper, but Hardik led them to the Qualifier 1 match.
Umran Malik needs to bring more variations in his game: Wasim Jaffer
In the same interview, Jaffer said that he will not pick Umran Malik for this series because according to him, Malik needs to play more first-class matches and prove himself for India ‘A’ first. Here’s what he added:
“Umran Malik needs to bring more variations in his game, as we all know he has pace. But on his bad day, he can be hit for 40-50 runs. If he plays enough first-class matches and plays for India A, he can get better.”
Here is the full Indian squad picked by him for the home T20I series against the South African cricket team:
Shikhar Dhawan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Prithvi Shaw, Rahul Tripathi, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson (wk), Tilak Varma, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohsin Khan/ T Natarajan
