Bhuvneshwar Kumar returns after 4 years as India announces T20 squad against New Zealand
Mumbai, October 6
Veteran pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar earned a Team India call-up after four years as the squad for the five T20Is against New Zealand was announced on Tuesday.
The men's selection committee announced India and India A squads for the upcoming tour of New Zealand. India will play five T20Is, while India A will play three Multi-Day matches against New Zealand A. The tour starts with five T20Is from October 22 onwards, with five ODIs and two Test matches to follow. Indian Test stars Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar and KL Rahul are in the India A squad, with the multi-day matches being played from October 24 to November 10 ahead of the two-match Test series taking place from November 19 onwards.
Bhuvneshwar, if he gets a chance to play, could play his first international game for India since the 2022 T20 World Cup semifinal against England at Adelaide. Since then, Bhuvneshwar has had a resurgance with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), with his 45 wickets in 31 matches at an average of 22.55 and an economy rate of 8.52 helping the franchise to back-to-back titles in 2025 and 2026.
The 'Swing King' has 90 scalps for India at an average of 23.10 in 87 T20Is and has taken two five-fors and three four-fers in the format. With 294 wickets across all formats, Bhuvneshwar at 36 years of age, has got a chance to complete 300 international wickets. This season in the IPL, Bhuvneshwar was the second-highest wicket-taker with 28 scalps in 16 matches at an average of 17.89, with an economy rate of 7.95.
Rishabh Pant's availability for India A games will be subject to fitness, having battled fever during the recently concluded Irani Cup, while playing for Rest of India against Jammu and Kashmir, the reigning Ranji Trophy champions.
India's T20I Squad: Shreyas Iyer [C], Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson [WK], Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan [WK], Tilak Varma [VC], Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav
India A squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Ravichandran Smaran, Rishabh Pant* [WK], Dhruv Jurel [C] [WK], Washington Sundar, Auqib Nabi, Akash Deep, Anshul Kamboj, Manav Suthar, Mukesh Choudhary, Sai Sudarsan, Yash Rathod, Mukesh Kumar. Note: * Subject to fitness.
— ANI
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