MUMBAI: The Indian squad for the Champions Trophy to be held in Pakistan from February 19 to March 9 was announced on Saturday. Malayali player Sanju Samson failed to earn a spot on the list. Shubman Gill will be the vice-captain of the team led by Rohit Sharma. Meanwhile, Yashaswi Jaiswal, Mohammad Shami and Jasprit Bumrah made it to the team.
The other members are Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (VK), Rishabh Pant (VK), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh. India's first-round matches in this year's Champions Trophy, which is set to be hosted by Pakistan, will be held in Dubai.
The selection committee met on Saturday morning and took the final decision on the 15-member team. The team announcement was made by Rohit Sharma and Ajit Agarkar, chairman of the selection committee. As the selection committee meeting went on, the press conference scheduled for 12.30 pm was shifted to 3 pm.
Sanju's decision to not play the Vijay Hazare trophy did not bode well with the selectors. Sanju decided to opt out of the tournament at a time when the BCCI had even prepared guidelines for senior players to mandatorily play in domestic tournaments. It is also reported that Sanju had informed the KCA officials about his assent to play in the tournament but was purportedly left out for not being part of the practice session.
A top BCCI official while responding to a national media called it a serious breach of discipline to not play in domestic matches. Last year, Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer lost their BCCI contracts for walking away from domestic cricket without permission. Accusations are also plenty about Sanju spending too much time in Dubai rather than in India.