No SKY, no Gill: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi headlines India's Asian Games probables

The BCCI has submitted a 30-member men's probables list for the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, with teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi earning a spot while India captains Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav have been left out.

In Short

• India will need to pick separate T20 squads for the Asian Games and the West Indies series
• India's home white-ball series against West Indies features three ODIs and five T20Is
• Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson and Tilak Varma are among the leading captaincy candidates

India's current T20 skipper Suryakumar Yadav, along with Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill, are the two prominent names missing, while teen sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been inducted into the 30-strong longlist of men's probables that the BCCI has submitted to the IOA for the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya from September 19 to October 4.

It has been pre-decided that the BCCI will need to select two separate T20 teams, as India's home white-ball series against the West Indies overlaps partly with the quadrennial extravaganza.

The West Indies series comprises eight white-ball games—three ODIs and five T20Is—between September 27 and October 17. Since Gill is expected to lead the team in ODIs, he hasn't been picked for the Asian Games.

While some players are common in both ODIs and T20Is, the men's cricket event at the Asian Games will take place between September 24 and October 3, forcing the selectors to create a bigger pool to pick two teams.

It is understood that Suryakumar is no longer in the larger scheme of things as far as the 2028 Olympic Games and the next T20 World Cup are concerned, and his name not featuring in the Asian Games longlist is a no-brainer.

The captaincy candidates in that Asian Games list would be Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson and Tilak Varma.

The list of bowlers has Jasprit Bumrah's name in it, although ODIs could be his priority at that point in time, taking the 2027 World Cup into account.

Harshit Rana is expected to be fit by then and has been kept on the long list along with Prasidh Krishna and Arshdeep Singh.

Among spinners, the frontline slow bowlers Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, and Harsh Dubey have made it to the list, but only two of the four are expected to be picked. The other two will play the Windies series.

Surprisingly, the only prominent non-performer to make the list is the gold medal-winning skipper from the Hangzhou edition—Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Longlist to IOA: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Ayush Badoni, , Harsh Dubey, Dhruv Jurel, Khaleel Ahmed, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravi Bishnoi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Shivam Dube, Vipraj Nigam Nigam, Harshit Rana, Yash Thakur, Washington Sundar.

- Ends