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The ICC T20 World Cup is scheduled to start from October 17 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). India will go in as one of the top three betting favorites and their odds of winning should increase after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that they have roped in MS Dhoni.
BCCI President Sourav Ganguly confirmed that the BCCI had rolled out an offer to MS Dhoni asking him to serve as the team mentor during the T20 World Cup and he had graciously agreed.
The former Indian captain helped India win their first T20 World Cup back in 2007 and would later captain the side and win the ICC ODI World Cup in 2011.
India Today
Ganguly said the BCCI wanted to take advantage of Dhoni’s experience and the best way of doing that was bringing him on board as team mentor. MS Dhoni and current captain Virat Kohli have enjoyed a good relationship over the years and was one of the reasons why the BCCI was happy to get Dhoni on board.
MS Dhoni is already in the UAE as he prepares to lead his IPL side – the Chennai Super Kings to their fourth IPL Championship.
India Select Strong Squad For T20 World Cup
The BCCI has named a strong squad for the T20 World Cup which will be captained by Virat Kohli. The BCCI has put together a nice mix of senior players and current IPL stars. The senior players include vice-captain Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah.
The younger T20 starts include Rishabh Pant, all-rounder Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Chahar. It was a bit of a surprise to see veteran off-spinner R Ashwin included in the T20 squad as R Ashwin has not played T20 cricket for India for a long time.
The selectors decided to drop Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav and give R Ashwin a chance as they believed his off-spin and experience will be a lot more valuable. Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer and Krunal Pandya also did not make the cut.
Our playing XI for the first few games of the T20 World Cup would be as follows. R Sharma, KL Rahul, V Kohli, S Yadav, I Kishan, H Pandya, R Pant, R Jadeja, B Kumar, J Bumrah and V Chakravarthy.
