Indian team to assemble in Delhi on June 5, SA arrive on June 2
With the IPL done and dusted, the focus of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has now shifted to international cricket and it has asked the Indian players to reach New Delhi, the venue of the first of the five-match Twenty20 International series against South Africa, by June 5. The messages were sent on Monday (May 30) and the team will have a few practice sessions before the first game in the capital on June 9.
The BCCI has already announced an 18-member squad with KL Rahul as captain and Rishabh Pant as vice-captain. The team will play the other four games in Cuttack on June 12, Vizag on June 14, Rajkot on June 17 and finally round off the series in Bangalore on June 19.
A Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) official has confirmed the Indian team's assembly on June 5. The Cricket South Africa (CSA) said the Temba Bavuma side, which also includes the IPL winning team Gujarat Titans' star batsman David Miller, will reach Delhi on Thursday (June 2).
The Indian Test squad, as previously reported, will leave for England on June 16 while another white-ball squad, bound for Ireland for two T20 games, will depart on June 23-24. Rahul, Pant, and Shreyas Iyer, who are part of the Test and T20 squads, will leave for the UK after the final game on June 19. They will fly directly from Bangalore.
The BCCI has already confirmed to Cricbuzz that the Ireland-bound team will be coached by VVS Laxman and his team of coaches, physios and trainers of the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in the absence of Dravid, who will be required to be with the Test side in England. However, it is still not clear if Dravid will manage the whole South Africa series or leave on June 16 with the Test players, handing over the T20 team to Laxman. Dravid did not respond to a message from this website.
India squad: KL Rahul (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (vice-captain, wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik.
South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma (C), Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Rassie van der Dussen and Marco Jansen.