'He Deserved India's Captaincy': BCCI Faces Criticism For Naming Shreyas Iyer As Vice Captain In ODIs For Australia Tour

India Tour of Australia: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced Team India's squads for their upcoming white-ball tour of Australia.

The cricket administrative board has appointed Shubman Gill as the new skipper of the ODIs, replacing Rohit Sharma. Both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been added to the Indian squad for the ODIs, and the veterans are set to don the Blue jersey under Gill's leadership.

ALSO READ: Shubman Gill Replaces Rohit Sharma As ODI Skipper, Virat Kohli Returns BCCI Announces India's Squad For Australia Tour

Fans Slam BCCI For Making Shubman Gill The Captain In ODIs

Meanwhile, BCCI's decision to hand over the captaincy role to Shubman Gill did not make the Indian cricket fans happy, as they believe Shreyas Iyer would have been Rohit Sharma's perfect successor.

Cricket fans slammed the BCCI for not giving the captaincy role to Shreyas Iyer, saying that Shreyas Iyer deserved to lead the Men in Blue after Rohit Sharma. One of the fans pointed out that Shubman Gill doesn't deserve captaincy in ODIs because he failed in big games. Another fan lashed out at head coach Gautam Gambhir and BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar for 'clearly doing favouritism towards Gill'. Some of the fans added that Shubman Gill is the most backed cricketer in the Indian Cricket Team.

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Shreyas Iyer's Stats In ODIs

Shreyas Iyer made his ODI debut in 2017 against Sri Lanka at Dharamsala. Since then, the 30-year-old played 70 matches and 65 innings, scoring 2845 runs at an average of 48.22 and a strike rate of 100.00. He slammed 5 centuries and 22 half-centuries for Team India in the 50-over format.

In List A cricket, Shreyas Iyer played 159 matches and 151 innings, scoring 6451 runs at a strike rate of 99.24 and an average of 48.87.

Team India will begin their tour of Australia on October 19 at the Perth Stadium in the first ODI match of the series. The second 50-over match will be played on October 23 at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide. Sydney Cricket Ground will be hosting the third and final ODI match of the series between India and Australia on October 25.

After the conclusion of the three-match ODI series, the Men in Blue will play against the Aussies in five T20Is. The first match of the series will be played at the Manuka Oval in Canberra, on October 29. The second and third matches will be played on October 31 and November 2, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Bellerive Oval, respectively.

The fourth match of the series will take place on November 6, at the Bill Pippen Oval. The Gabba in Brisbane will host the final T20I match of the series on November 8.

India’s ODI squad: Shubman Gill (C), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (VC), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.