The ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will serve as a good barometer to judge the form of the Indian players ahead of the all-important 2024 T20 World Cup, which begins on June 1.
Only 15 players will make it to India’s squad for the T20 World Cup, out of which you can predict that there will be between 4 to 6 pure bowlers. That leaves a combined total of 9 to 11 spots for batsmen, wicketkeepers, and all-rounders.
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In this article, The Sporting News takes a look at the form of the Indian batsmen in the ongoing edition of IPL and tries to predict the batsmen that will make the cut for the biennial tournament.
MORE: Who will make the India squad for 2024 T20 World Cup?
Ahead of IPL 2024, regardless of form or the number of runs scored by these batsmen, you can be certain that they will feature for India at the T20 World Cup, or at least be a part of the squad.
Those players include Rohit Sharma, who will be leading the Men in Blue.
List of players:
Then, two all-rounders who are capable of changing the game with the bat are Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja. Not only will these two be a part of the squad (barring injuries), but they will be indispensable to the playing XI, given the balance they provide.
Lastly, based on current form, just two Indian wicketkeepers have put on convincing displays: Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson. However, Samson usually tends to fade off during the second half of the season.
A month ago, if I said that Pant would be leading the race to be India’s first-choice wicketkeeper at the 2024 T20 World Cup, you would have called me crazy and out of my mind. But, with two half-centuries to his name already, Pant looks ready to don the Blue of India.
At the moment, Kohli looks in imperious form. He’s the current Orange Cap holder. GIll, apart from one innings where he scored 89* off 48 balls, hasn’t looked great. The consistency he had in 2023 while winning the Orange Cap (890 runs) is missing.
Jaiswal, meanwhile, is having a torrid start to IPL 2024. Indian skipper Rohit has looked fluid but hasn’t converted any of his innumerable starts into a big score yet.
Now, let’s take a look at this set of players in the ongoing edition of IPL 2024. This set of players will be called ‘Group A’.
MORE: 2024 T20 World Cup schedule fixtures
NOTE: ‘BAT’ – pure batsman, ‘WK’ – wicketkeeper-batsman, ‘ALL’ – all-rounder
There are a lot of players who haven’t necessarily nailed down a berth in India’s 15-man squad for the T20 World Cup but will surely remain in contention. However, their form during IPL 2024 will be the ultimate basis of their selection for the international tournament. At the moment, only Sanju Samson and Shivam Dube (and to some extent, Tilak Varma) look in good form.
List of players:
These set of players will be called ‘Group B’.
This season, several young Indian batsmen have looked in great form. There’s a certain sense of maturity in the way they are playing in the middle. RR’s Riyan Parag, SRH’s Abhishek Sharma, and GT’s Sai Sudharsan are players with an outside chance of making it to India’s squad, should they continue to pile on the runs.
These set of players will be called ‘Group C’.
Parshva is a Content Producer for The Sporting News' India edition.
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