The former cricketer Irfan Pathan suggests that Jitesh Sharma and Ishan Kishan will compete for the wicketkeeper’s spot in India’s T20 World Cup squad.
Irfan’s picks for T20 World Cup squad
After the ODI World Cup 2023 campaign, all countries have eyed the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup starting on June 2024. All teams are in the hunt of filtering the players based on their performances in the T20 matches.
With KL Rahul as one of the mainstays in the squad, the competition for the second spot is between Jitesh Sharma and Ishan Kishan. On this occasion, the all-rounder Irfan Pathan feels that Jitesh Sharma should edge Mumbai Indian batters due to his ability to bat in the lower order.
India is also looking to fill the squad which gets intense with every T20 match. Out of those, the candidate for the wicketkeeper has more competition in the Indian squad. Out of those, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, and Jitesh Sharma emerged as the biggest candidates.
“I will play Jitesh hands down. I have maintained from earlier that if you have to play Ishan, whether it is ODIs or T20Is, you have to play him at the top, and there is a traffic jam at the top,” Pathan said on media.
“It’s very difficult for Ishan Kishan to make his place. This is my belief. I don’t know at all what the team management thinks but his ability that I have judged for many years, I feel he needs the hard new ball and then he plays spin well,” he added.
Irfan also suggested that he has a better profile than Ishan Kishan and his growth in the T20 format in the past 1.5 years is incredible.
“When you bat in the middle order, you will get spin in front of you, and there you (Kishan) might have difficulties at times. Jitesh Sharma is a slightly creative player. He is a Suryakumar Yadav-mold type player. You will see him playing the lap and different types of shots,” he elaborated.
“His growth in T20 cricket in the last one to one-and-a-half years has been fantastic. He has been doing the finisher’s role extremely well for the Punjab Kings in the IPL and he recently played two very good innings (for India). His strike rate is always impressive and he plays both spin and fast bowling well,” Pathan further said.
India has only five t20I games ahead of the T20 World Cup. Indian team is currently playing in the T20I series on the South Africa tour, where the first T20I match was abandoned due to rain. The second T20I match will be played on December 12 at St. George’s Oval.
