Not Kuldeep Or Bishnoi! Harbhajan Singh Backs 33-Year-Old As India's First Choice Leg Spinner At T20 WC 2024

not kuldeep yadav or ravi bishnoi! harbhajan singh backs 33-year-old yuzvendra chahal as india’s first choice leg spinner at t20 wc 2024

With no T20Is left for Team India before the T20 World Cup 2024, the Men in Blue are not far away from finalizing their squad for the mega event, which is set to take place in the West Indies and the United States of America (USA) from June 1 to 29. While it is not hard to predict how India’s squad will look, some positions will raise debate.

One of the biggest ones is who will be the spinners to take the flight to North America. With a plethora of options for both the wrist spinner and many all-round options, it is going to be a hard decision to narrow down for the Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee to decide which and how many spinners to include in the 15-member squad.

A rather interesting pick will be who gets the nod for being the team’s first-choice wrist spinner. While Ravi Bishnoi and Kuldeep Yadav have put up strong displays in the last couple of months, Harbhajan Singh ignored both and picked Yuzvendra Chahal as the team’s first-choice leg-spinner.

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Harbhajan expressed his surprise at Chaha’s exclusion from the team in recent times and stated that there is no better or braver leg-spinner than him in the country.

“I would keep Yuzvendra Chahal ahead (for the first slot among spinners). He is being ignored; I don’t know why. I don’t think he knows as well. But even today, I don’t think there is a better leg-spinner in the country. And I don’t think there is a braver spinner than him. He has a very sharp mind. The second spinner for me would be Ravindra Jadeja. You need to have an off-spinner in Washington Sundar as well. Now, what selectors think, what the management thinks, is a different thing,” Harbhajan Singh told Hindustan Times.

Harbhajan called for the team to pick three spinners as the conditions in the West Indies will be similar to those on the subcontinent.

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“Pitches will be pretty similar, like India. Spinners will play a big role. I’ve been to the West Indies on many occasions, and I’ve seen there’s always something for the spinners. Hence, it is important to pick the right attack. You cannot look past the conditions because they will be similar to the subcontinent. You have to make the team keeping in mind the conditions. You need to have at least three spinners in your squad,” said Harbhajan.

Chahal is India’s leading wicket-taker in history in T20Is, with 96 wickets to his name.However, he has never played a T20 World Cup match in his career having been left out of the squad in 2021 while spending the entire tournament on the bench in 2022.

Chahal has not played for India in any format since the tour of the West Indies in August. He was dropped from the Asia Cup and World Cup squads while not finding himself in the reckoning for the T20Is against Australia, South Africa, and Afghanistan.

In his absence, Bishnoi won the Man of the Series award against Australia, while Kuldeep took a five-wicket haul in the win over South Africa in Jo’burg last month.