Australia have done a few times in the past where their first-choice team would be playing a Test series home or away, they'll have a specialist side for limited-overs selected and going for a series. But now with the emergence of India's talent pool across formats, it wouldn't be difficult for India to have two different sides playing at the same time.
India took 30 players to Australia including reserves and the circumstances were such that every last player got to play a game and whoever came in made an immediate impact and showed what he is capable of when given an opportunity at the highest level. Mohammed Siraj, Axar Patel, Shubman Gill, Shardul Thakur, Washington Sundar to name a few, performed and showed their mettle.
With BCCI president Sourav Ganguly recently saying that India will be having a 'specialist' limited-overs side going to Sri Lanka to play in three ODIs and five T20Is, this might be a great opportunity for the Indian team to test their bench strength and the ones who had a great IPL season ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup and with the player limit extending up to 23, many players would be eager to make their mark.
So let's take a look at the make-up of this specialist side and which players might get a shot at plying for India in the white-ball formats:
Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw look certainties for the openers' slots, with an outside chance of Devdutt Padikkal getting a maiden call-up given his exploits in the Vijay Hazare Trophy and in the IPL for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Dhawan and Shaw, on the other hand, are in the form of their lives having stitched five 50-plus partnerships for Delhi Capitals in this year's IPL including two 130-plus stands.
For the middle-order, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan will be back. Shreyas Iyer, who underwent shoulder surgery will be facing a race against time to get fit by July, otherwise, Manish Pandey could be relooked with Sanju Samson as the second wicket-keeper forming a strong middle-order.
As for the all-rounders, the Pandya brothers, Hardik and Krunal will be there in the side and Rahul Tewatia will be in the squad after being picked for the England T20I series. Rahul Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav will form the spin core with a chance for Varun Chakravarthy as well.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar will lead the pace attack, with the likes of Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini in the squad. Left-arm pacer T Natarajan will be there if he recovers in time after the knee surgery otherwise Rajasthan Royals' duo of Jaydev Unadkat and Chetan Sakariya could get a look-in to provide the variety along with the RCB's death bowler Harshal Patel, who just couldn't stop taking wickets in this year's IPL.
