Early on Saturday night, the first group of Indian players left for the United States in preparation for the June 1 start of the 2024 T20 World Cup. Along with batting coach Vikram Rathour, head coach Rahul Dravid, and a few more players, captain Rohit Sharma left Mumbai. But not present was former captain of India Virat Kohli, who was also scheduled to travel with the initial group of players.
Ten Indian players were scheduled to depart for New York on May 25, the day their Indian Premier League (IPL) clubs were eliminated from the playoffs this season. It was later revealed, though, that players whose club would be eliminated early from the IPL 2024 knockout round will also go. This suggests that players like Kohli and Mohammed Siraj of Royal Challengers Bengaluru were supposed to be included in the initial wave.
Siraj did, however, accompany Rohit and the other Indian players, but kohli was not present. Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Kuldeep Yadav, and Axar Patel were among the other players on the traveling team.
Following RCB’s devastating IPL 2024 exit, he extended his leave of absence. As a result, BCCI rescheduled Kohli’s visa appointment for a later time. The 35-year-old will thus probably miss India’s T20 World Cup warm-up match against Bangladesh on June 1 in New York. He currently holds the Orange Cap with 741 runs in 15 IPL 2024 matches.
“The BCCI has postponed Kohli’s visa appointment since he had notified us well in advance that he would be joining the squad late. It is anticipated that he would depart for New York early on May 30. His request has been granted by the BCCI,” an authority informed the publication.
The article also stated that Sanju Samson, the captain of the Rajasthan Royals, and Hardik Pandya, the captain of the Mumbai Indians, will depart later than expected. In fact, Samson told the board that he was delaying his trip to New York because of “personal work in Dubai.”
The newly built Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York will host the opening match of Team India’s campaign on June 5 against Ireland and the opening match on June 9 against Pakistan. Team India was the victor of the 2007 T20 World Cup in South Africa. As part of their Group-A fixtures, matches against co-hosts USA (June 12) and Canada (June 15) will come after this.
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