The 15-man squad of India for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 was announced yesterday by the BCCI at an official meeting. It was long ago assumed that the senior cricketers will find it hard to get selected in Indian squad and it turns out true. Not only Yuvraj all the big five veteran cricketers, including Sehwag, Harbhajan, Zaheer and Gambhir have also been completely overlooked.
Why Yuvraj Singh should have been selected for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015?
India won the last world cup successfully only because the team had an astute combination of experienced and youths. This time the same doesn’t hold true. Only four players; Kohli, Dhoni, Raina and Ashwin are the experienced while the rest of 11 players will play the tournament for the first time. Surprisingly, there is no Yuvraj Singh in the team who was declared the player-of-the-tournament in the last edition of the World Cup four years back. It is shocking that how the contribution of this left handed veteran batsman was completely forgotten when the final 15 of the Indian cricket team was being considered.
It is apparent that selectors have given preference to the youths which is alright but they should have thought about few seniors as well. Especially Yuvraj and Zaheer were the most deserving players to be selected in the team this time too. Both Yuvraj and Zaheer performed exceedingly well in the last world cup. On one hand the commanding bowling of Zaheer Khan kept the opponents at bay, especially in the initial and in the death overs while Yuvi deftly bowled in the middle overs to keep the opponents under constant pressure. Yuvraj also contributed heavily with the bat and scored 362 runs at an average of 86 in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.
It was the all round show of the talented southpaw that helped him become the top performer in the World Cup last time. Certainly the God of Cricket Sachin Tendulkar also played spectacularly and was the second highest run-getter in the world cup after TM Dilshan of Sri Lanka but Yuvraj’s performance was adjudged the best. Eventually he was unanimously declared the Man-Of-The-Series. His performance at the last world cup was the astonishing one; he took 15 crucial wickets and scored 362 runs that helped India win some important clashes convincingly.
There were some issues regarding his selection in team India in test matches, but the talented all-rounder remained a permanent member of India’s ODI squad for the last one decade in a row. He holds a rare achievement of being a hero in two consecutive world cups. His excellent performance in 2007 helped India win the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup 2007 under the captaincy of MS Dhoni.
Also, it was the same Yuvraj Singh, whose all-round consistent performances during the last World Cup provided India the necessary impetus to become the world champion after a huge gap of 28 years. Do you still need a reason to pick this talented and skillful all-rounder?
15 member squad of India for ICC Cricket World Cup 2015: Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli (VC), MS Dhoni (C & WK) Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, Akshar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Stuart Binny.
Tags: BCCI, Cricket World Cup, CWC2015, ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, Indian Squad, Yuvraj Singh
