It’s not even been 24 hours since India’s stunning performance in the Asia Cup 2023 final in Colombo and the BCCI is already preparing to announce a squad for a three-match ODI series against Australia staring later this week.
Yes, India are to play three matches against the five-time ODI World champions at home starting September 22. While the idea behind keeping the series so close to a world cup is to give the two teams a chance to fine-tune their preparations, the spate of injuries players are suffering in the lead up may be a cause of concern.
India and Australia have been hit by injuries and managing the workload of their key players right before a global tournament will be quite high on the agenda. Australia are bringing a full strength squad while India may also stick to the world-cup bound stars although there’s a high probability of Axar Patel being missing out after suffering an injury during the Super 4 clash against Bangladesh last week.
Axar is part of India’s 15-man squad for the world cup and while the extent of his injury is unknown at this stage, it does open up a spot. The Indian team management has already hinted which player could serve as a replacement in the event of Axar missing out the world cup having flown Washington Sundar to Sri Lanka for the Asia Cup final a day before.
Also captain Rohit Sharma has said plenty of players are in contention should there be a need for a replacement including Sundar and, wait for it, Ravichandran Ashwin.
Shreyas Iyer made his comeback in Sri Lanka too but unfortunately back spasms limited his participation to just two matches. Rohit though shared positive news on his recovery stating he’s ’99 per cent’ fit.
Iyer is expected to play in all three ODIs of the Australia series.
