India will aim to end their major ICC trophy drought when they start their campaign in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024, starting June 1. The event in UAE and West Indies will see the Rohit Sharma-led side starting its quest of a second T20 world title, having won it for the first time way back in 2007. The last two editions of T20 World Cup saw India getting eliminated in the league stage in 2021 and in the semi-final in 2022. Ahead of the upcoming edition, former England cricketer David Lloyd has given a massive statement.
Lloyd said that India are a “predictable team” and they “would not be really threatening” in the tournament. He made the remark while speaking to talkSPORT.
“(It is) quite a predictable team. The shackles are not off,” Lloyd said.
“I would think the opposition accept the quality.. yeah, good players these. But they ain’t taking a risk with bat or ball. So, you’d think of them as ‘yeah, they will have their moments,’ but they wouldn’t be really threatening’,” he said further.
India squad for T20 World Cup 2024 – Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj
Reserves: Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Khaleel Ahmed and Avesh Khan
India will take on Bangladesh in their T20 World Cup warm-up fixture in the USA on June 1. The venue and time of India’s fixture is yet to be announced. Seventeen of the 20 teams will play warm-up games slated from May 27 till June 1 across the USA and Trinidad and Tobago, the ICC stated. South Africa will be playing an intra-squad match on May 29 in Florida.
Defending champions England and last edition’s runner-up side Pakistan and semi-finalists New Zealand are not playing any warm-up matches.
The venues for hosting the 16 warm-up matches, include Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium in Texas, Broward County Stadium in Florida, Queen’s Park Oval and Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad and Tobago.
The warm-up fixtures will not have T20I status, allowing teams to field all members of their 15-player squad.
In a departure from the previous cycle, teams can now choose to play up to two warm-up matches, depending on their arrival for the event.
(With PTI Inputs)
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