T20 World Cup 2021: Gautam Gambhir picks India Playing 11 for first match against Pakistan

To everyone’s surprise, India packed their WT20 squad with 5 spinners and just 3 specialist pacers in the squad of 15. While England, who are one of the hot favorites to lift the trophy have only one specialist spinner in Adil Rashid along with Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone in their squad.

These two teams have taken a different route in picking their squad and it has raised a lot of questions over the kind of tracks that will be on offer for the tournament. The former Indian captain Gautam Gambhir has picked his India 11 for the first game against Pakistan and he has only one spinner in his playing 11.

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India have included Ravichandran Ashwin in their squad who last played a T20I for India in 2017 which is 4 years ago. The decision to include Ravichandran Ashwin is mainly because of the absence of Washington Sundar who is ruled out of the tournament due to injury.

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Being the experienced spinner, he might  find a place in the XI right from the word go but Gautam Gambhir thinks otherwise. He left out Ravichandran Ashwin and picked Varun Chakravarthy as the specialist spinner along with the all rounder in Ravindra Jadeja.

The middle order will have Suryakumar Yadav and Rishabh Pant while the lower order will be handled by 2 all rounders in Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja.

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The top 3 in Gautam Gambhir’s XI will have the experienced trio in KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. The southpaw has also picked all the 3 specialist seamers in the squad in his playing 11.

“KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma to open the batting, Virat Kohli to bat at No.3, Suryakumar Yadav at No.4, Rishabh Pant at No.5, Hardik at No.6, Jadeja at No.7, Bhuvi at No.8, Varun Chakravarthy at No.9, Shami at No.10 and Bumrah No.11,” Gautam Gambhir said.

Gautam Gambhir’s playing XI against Pakistan

KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy

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