The Indian men’s cricket team handed debut caps to Mumbai all-rounder Suryansh Shedge and Delhi pacer Prince Yadav for the second T20I against Ireland in Belfast on Sunday (June 28). 15-year-old prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, meanwhile, was once again asked to warm the bench.
Shedge is a right-arm pacer and a right-handed batter who bats in the lower-middle order. He’s a typical finisher, seen in the Hardik Pandya and Nitish Kumar Reddy mould. With both seniors injured, Shedge was called up to the team after a successful India ‘A’ List-A tour of Sri Lanka. He scored 147 runs there in five matches at an excellent strike-rate of 120.49, while also taking two wickets and bowling in key moments.
“He’s a powerful, destructive batter,” India captain
Shreyas Iyer, who plays with Shedge at Punjab Kings, said about him. “Yes, he’s a sensational youngster who has been scoring runs in domestic cricket and also in the IPL. He’s got a tremendous amount of experience in youth cricket. So definitely he’s performed in the A tours. So he’s getting, he’s reaping the benefits,” he added.
Shedge will replace Washington Sundar in the 11, after the spinner conceded 19 runs in his solitary over in the first T20I.
Prince, on the other hand, comes in for Prasidh, who conceded over 50 runs for no wickets. The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) seamer took 16 wickets in 14 matches, including a special clean-bowled of Virat Kohli, which Shreyas was reminded of at the toss.
“It’s his first game, so I don’t want to put him under that much pressure,” Shreyas said of Prince. “It’s important that he comes out here and experiences and gains the experience out of what is there to offer. And he must have seen how we played in the previous game. So definitely he’s smart enough to adapt to it,” he added.
India’s 11: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (WK), Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer (C), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Suryansh Shedge, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav
