Five standbys named for Champions Trophy 2017, thanks to MS Dhoni

The BCCI finally revealed 15-member squad for the Champions Trophy to be held in England next month. It was MS Dhoni who insisted for backup options in case anyone sustains an injury during the course of the tournament. The announcement was made after a longstanding battle with the ICC for reinstatement of the previous revenue model.

Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Umesh Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja make a comeback into the one-day squad. BCCI threatened to pull out of the mega event in case their demands were not met. Finally, the Indian board in the latest Special General Meeting decided to not pull out of the tournament and announced their squad thirteen days post the deadline yesterday.

However, citing the busy schedule and the heavy workload of the players, MS Dhoni requested the selectors to pick a backup squad of five members featuring Kuldeep Yadav, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Kartik, Rishabh Pant and Shardul Thakur.

“It was Dhoni’s idea to keep the standbys ready. The Indian team has suffered a lot with breakdowns in the middle of big series,” An official from the BCCI quoted TOI.

After the conclusion of the on-going IPL, the players are expected to train at National Cricket Academy, Bangalore so as to be ready for an emergency call-up for the major tournament. Some of the players in the Champions Trophy squad have been playing non-stop cricket since September.

India concluded a victorious grand home season of Test matches by defeating Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh. In between these Test series, India played a couple of one-day series against England and New Zealand alongside a T20 series against England. They managed to win all the limited-over series as well.

It all ended with the Australian series in March and some of the players started representing their respective franchises in the IPL. Now that the IPL is supposed to get over in a couple of weeks time, the Indian team will board the flight to England contesting for the Champions Trophy.