The Asia Cup 2025 starts in September, and by August 19 or 20, the Indian squad for the tournament is to be announced, as per a report in PTI. While there shouldn’t be any major surprise, it could be a big setback for opener Yashasvi Jaiswal. That all will happen only on the sports science team’s report from the Centre of Excellence — that will discuss the case for all the players.
Sanju Samson & Abhishek Sharma Confirmed Openers?
But it seems, that the selectors have already made up their minds about certain players in the batting order. They seem to be keen on retaining the opening combination of Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson, followed by Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, and Hardik Pandya.
“Abhishek Sharma is world’s No. 1 T20 batter in last ICC rankings. Sanju Samson has been fantastic last season with both bat and gloves. So it will certainly be a tough call but Shubman in current form (although in Tests) can’t be ignored. He had a good IPL also. Problem for selectors is, there are too many performers at the top of the order,” a BCCI source privy to developments told PTI.
Yashasvi Jaiswal Misses Out Cut
That, in short means, Yashasvi Jaiswal won’t get a place. With Sai Sudharsan in top form in T20s, the latter might miss out too. Going further, there was a case for KL Rahul as well, but he too is likely to miss out, with virtually no space left in the team. Meanwhile, it is safe to say that Jaiswal hasn’t done anything wrong to miss out, if he eventually does.
In the 23 T20Is he has played till date, he has gone on to score 723 runs at an average of 36, including five fifties and one ton. It might just be the case of India selectors — led by Ajit Agarkar, sticking with a combination that has been playing together for the last year or so.
On the other hand, there is likely to be a tough fight for the second keeper’s slot in the team. Dhruv Jurel and Jitesh Sharma are the likely contenders. Both have done well in the IPL 2025, both are good with the gloves, and seem to be reliable too.
India probable squad for Asia Cup: Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Tilak Verma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana/Prasidh Krishna, Hardik Pandya, Jitesh Sharma/Dhruv Jurel.
