Veteran cricket journalist stunned by “arrogant” India squad announcement for Aussie Test series

Veteran cricket journalist Robert Craddock was stunned by India naming their Test squad for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar series despite being two of three Tests into an ongoing campaign against New Zealand.

Craddock described the announcement as arrogant given they’re still in the midst of having their focus on the Kiwis, despite already losing the series having gone 0-2 down in the first two Tests in Bengaluru and Pune respectively.

Another aspect of the announcement that shocked Craddock was that India’s selectors overlooked veteran bowler Mohammed Shami who has only recently recovered from an ankle injury.

“But even the arrogance and I'll put this one back to you,” Craddock told SEN Whateley.

“I was stunned by how they arrogantly announced their team for Australia before the third Test.

“Like, they’ve got another Test to play, but they grandly announced their team to Australia.

“Like Mohammed Shami, who's an absolute masterful bowler, they drew a line under him because he wasn't playing domestic cricket.

“But I mean, I'd have been given him every chance (to face Australia) and I tweeted a video of him bowling in the nets.”

SEN host Gerard Whateley thinks that the announcement could have come out after the second Test as India may have felt like they already would have been 2-0 up and shifting their focus to Australia.

“I think it was the assumption - particularly after New Zealand's performance in Sri Lanka - that this was the tune-up, they were going to win,” Whateley said.

“It was, ‘We don't need to worry too much about what's in front of us’.”

India’s squad for the 202/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.