India pick their ODI squad on Wednesday, and their vice-captain will be in Japan
The Asian Games and the West Indies ODI series overlap almost exactly, which means two India squads in two countries and a gold medal match on the same day as the third ODI.
Sep 15, 2026
India play Afghanistan in Delhi tonight. On Wednesday, in the same city, Ajit Agarkar’s selection committee sits down to pick an ODI squad for a home series against West Indies. The man who normally deputises for Shubman Gill in that side will not be in the conversation, because he has a flight to Japan.
Shreyas Iyer is captaining India’s men’s cricket team at the Asian Games. That single fact is about to bend India’s next fortnight out of shape.
Two squads, two countries, one week
The Asian Games cricket tournament runs from 24 September to 3 October at Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin, Japan. It is a T20 event with ten teams, six of whom play a preliminary group stage while the four top seeds go straight to the quarter-finals. India are one of the four. Their quarter-final is on 28 September, the semi-finals are on 1 October and both medal matches are on 3 October.
The West Indies ODI series starts on 27 September in Thiruvananthapuram, moves to Guwahati on 30 September, and finishes at Mullanpur on 3 October.
Read those two paragraphs again and the collision is obvious. If India reach the gold medal match in Japan, they will be playing it on the same day as the third ODI at home. Two India teams, two countries, the same afternoon.
Who is already spoken for
The Asian Games squad is not a token one. Iyer leads it with Tilak Varma as his deputy, and the fifteen includes Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur, Varun Chakravarthy and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
Sooryavanshi is 15. He already holds the record as the youngest player to represent India, having debuted in the T20I series against England in July at 15 years and 99 days, and he won the IPL 2026 Orange Cap with 776 runs in 16 matches at a strike rate of 237.30. He is not a novelty pick, and that is rather the point about this squad generally.
The Varun problem
One name on that list is already in doubt. Varun Chakravarthy came back from a hamstring injury to bowl four overs for 1 for 16 in the first T20I against Afghanistan, then pulled up with a side strain. He is out of the rest of that series, and he is expected to miss Japan as well, which leaves the selectors hunting a spinner at short notice.
Kuldeep Yadav is the experienced option if India want a proven wrist-spinner. Vipraj Nigam and Shahbaz Ahmed have both been floated as alternatives. Whoever it is will find out on Wednesday, in the same meeting that decides the ODI squad.
What is left for the ODIs
Gill keeps the ODI captaincy. With Iyer away, KL Rahul is the likely vice-captain, which would be a straightforward call given how much international cricket he has behind him.
The more interesting question is the second wicketkeeper behind Rahul. It is Rishabh Pant or Dhruv Jurel, and the two selections are tied together: whichever of them misses out on the ODI squad is in line to captain Rest of India in the Irani Cup, which runs from 1 to 5 October in Srinagar against Ranji champions Jammu and Kashmir. Ruturaj Gaikwad is expected to come in for Iyer. Hardik Pandya’s inclusion depends on where his fitness has got to.
A calendar eating itself
None of this is anyone’s fault in particular. A multi-sport event and a bilateral series were booked into the same ten days, and Indian cricket has enough depth to field both without embarrassment. That is the honest defence.
It still produces something odd. A gold medal match and a home ODI, on 3 October, with two different India sides and two different captains, and a selection meeting on Wednesday that has to make both of them work. Agarkar has picked plenty of squads. He has not often had to pick two that are trying to be in two places at once.