The 2023 ICC ODI World Cup kicks off in India on October 5th. The names of Team India’s 15 players for the mega event were announced on September 5 by Selection Committee Chairman Ajit Agarkar. After 2011, the ODI World Cup will be held in India for the first time. Because of this, Team India, captained by Rohit Sharma, is considered a strong contender for the title.
If you compare the Indian team announced for the World Cup with the winning team of 2011, big differences become clearly visible. The average age of the winning team captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni was 28 years, while the average age of the team this time is 30.06 years.
If we look at India’s world team in 2011, Sachin Tendulkar was the only one over 30 years old among all the players on the team at the time. In addition, there were experienced players such as Captain Dhoni, Raina, Sehwag, Gambhir and Yuvraj. Since they were all under 30 at the time, they had also proven to be winning players.
If we look at the ages of the batsmen of the announced World Cup team this time, Captain Rohit Sharma is 36 years old, Virat Kohli is 34 years old, Suryakumar Yadav is 32 years old and KL Rahul is 31 years old. Virat was also part of the 2011 World Championship winning team. At the same time, the names Shubman Gill, Ishaan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer are being added to the under-30 batsmen team.
When Team India won the World Cup in 2011, the bowlers also played a big role. Back then, fast bowling was managed by Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, who were considered very experienced. At the same time, in the spin department, India had Piyush Chawla and Ravichandran Ashwin to choose from alongside Harbhajan Singh.
Under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma, only one spinner specialist has a place on this team in Kuldeep Yadav. In addition, fast bowling includes Bumrah, Shami and Siraj, all three of whom will be playing together again after a long time.
When India won the World Cup in 2011, Yuvraj Singh played a very important role as an all-rounder. In addition, such players as Sehwag, Yuvraj, Sachin, Raina and Yusuf Pathan, who in bowling, in addition to hitting, also had the opportunity to throw something, were included in this team.
If we look at the team announced for the 2023 World Cup, apart from Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pandya, Akshar Patel and Shardul Thakur, no other player offers the opportunity to both bat and bowl. However, not all of these players play in the top rankings. While Sehwag and Yuvraj were the main batsmen in the 2011 World Cup team.
Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma (c), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (vc), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Akshar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami , Jaspreet Bumrah, Shardul Thakur.