"T20 side for India should be selected from IPL": KKR mentor Gautam Gambhir

"The T20 World Cup and T20 side for India should be selected from IPL. A 50-over format should be selected from Vijay Hazare and your Test side should be selected from your first-class cricket. As simple as it gets. Otherwise, if you start selecting people in 50-over format or even in red-ball cricket from an IPL competition, I think you're making a lot of shortcuts for a lot of these young players to not focus on red-ball cricket or in 50-over format. Then you're literally walking on the edge," the former left-hand batter concluded.

Kolkata Knight Riders mentor Gautam Gambhir said the selection of the T20I squad should be dependent on the performances of players in the Indian Premier League. Last month, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced India's 15-player squad with a couple of surprise exclusions. Opener Shubman Gill and star batter Rinku Singh did not find a spot in the main squad.

On the other hand, Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson along with Shivam Dube, on the back of strong performances in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL), punched the ticket for the marquee event which will begin in June. The event is being held in the USA and the West Indies. Gambhir said that the main focus of youngsters is on playing T20 cricket. He further asserted that playing in the IPL is not a shortcut to playing for India.

"I think just the way domestic players want to play the IPL, they work around T20 cricket. I think most of their focus is on playing T20 cricket. If you see lots of these young players, and that is where the massive threat going forward will be with Indian cricket, is that how many cricketers do want to play Test cricket. The entire discussion with young cricketers revolves around how they can get selected to play the IPL, and I hope this is not the shortcut to playing for India," Gambhir said on Ravichandran Ashwin's YouTube channel. The 42-year-old further stated that the only way to play for the national team is to do well in first-class cricket.

"The only way to play for India is to probably do well in first-class cricket, and then do well in the 50-over format, Vijay Hazare and then the IPL. You can select your T20 side from an IPL competition. You should never select your 50-over side looking at a T20 or an IPL. If your domestic players keep talking about how they can get selected to play the IPL, somewhere the focus starts shifting from first-class cricket to IPL. That's the reason I say that IPL, as a quality, has got much better as compared to where it was initially in the first three or four years," the former Indian cricketer added. In the end, the KKR mentor said that the T20 squad should be selected on the basis of IPL performance and the 50-over team should be selected on the basis of Vijay Hazare's performance.

India are placed in Group A of the ICC tournament alongside arch-rivals Pakistan, Ireland, Canada and co-hosts USA. India will begin their T20 World Cup campaign against Ireland on June 5 at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, New York, followed by the marquee clash against Pakistan on June 9 at the same venue. India will then play the USA and Canada on June 12 and 15 respectively.

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj Reserves: Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed and Avesh Khan. (ANI)

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