Asia Cup 2023: Cricket Twitter welcomes Rahul and Iyer back into Indian team, trolls BCCI over announcement goof-up

The speculations surrounding India’s squad for the upcoming Asia Cup came to an end on Monday with the BCCI unveiling a 17-man contingent for the tournament that kicks off on 30 August and will take place in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The focus of the squad announcement was the inclusion of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer, both of whom had been injured for a majority of the summer. Iyer and Rahul had been undergoing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru, and have been deemed fit to return to action later this month.

Iyer had been out of action since the end of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a back injury while KL Rahul had injured his thigh while fielding during the Indian Premier League, with the two missing out on the ICC World Test Championship final as well as the tour of the West Indies. Both had undergone surgeries in London before heading to the NCA for rehab. Also earning a maiden ODI call-up was middle-order batter Tilak Varma, a rising star for Mumbai Indians in the IPL who got his international career off to a superb start in the recent T20I series against the West Indies. Suryakumar Yadav, who hasn’t exactly been able to carry his sensational T20 form over to the 50-over format, too has been named in the 17-member squad. There was no place however, for wrist spinner Yuzvendra Chahal with India picking Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav as their spin options. Additionally, wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson has been named as a reserve in the squad. Additionally, there was a goof-up in BCCI’s announcement of the squad with the board having initially released one that did not mention opening batter Shubman Gill’s name. The BCCI rectified the error with a revised squad a few minutes later, but the goof-up did lead to some sharp reactions on social media along with a barrage of memes. We take a look at how netizens on microblogging website X (formerly known as Twitter) reacted to the development: