End of Road for some and Opportunity for some.

India’s squad for the West Indies tour has been announced and where it was quite shocking for some and many had predicted that coming. After the WTC final loss against Australia, many experts suggested that the Indian team should look for other options and prepare them over this next WTC cycle. And the selection committee did the same.

In their first assignment of the WTC, the Indian team decided to give a run to some fresh faces and at the same time let go of some of the seniors.

Taking from the previous assignment, the majority of the squad remains the same except for the senior batsmen Cheteshwar Pujara and pacer Umesh Yadav. Both of them had an ordinary outing at Edgbaston and were not able to contribute much, resulting in their exclusion from the team.

In place of the experienced duo Yashaswi Jaiswal and Mukesh Kumar has been drafted in. Alongside them, CSK opener Ruturaj Gaikwad has also received his maiden call-up to the test team. Both Yashaswi and Mukesh have been performing consistently in the domestic arena. 

With former scored an average of more than 50 and also had an exceptional IPL season. And later has taken around 149 scalps in just 39 first-class games.

Meanwhile, Gaikwad who was also a reserve batter in the squad of WTC, finally got his due of his consistent performances across all formats in the domestic circuit. Sarfaraz Khan who is bashing the selector's doors with scoring runs at an average of more than 100 has been left out again. 

Also, the selection of Navdeep Saini who last played a test match more than two years ago has been selected in place of Mohammed Shami who has been rested from the tour.

But the major surprise came in later when Ajinkya Rahane was appointed the Vice-captain of the side. Earlier Rahane's selection was questioned because many said BCCI has added him because of his performance in IPL.

But Jinx shut down the mouth of all the critics when he was the sole batter who played brilliantly on a difficult pitch. This might be a hint from the selection panel that they might be looking at him as the next leader after Rohit Sharma.

India will kick start their tour against the West Indies on 12 July in Dominica and this will also mark the start of the next WTC cycle (2023-25).