After much drama surrounding the BCCI-ICC stand-off and the subsequent talks of India pulling out of the Champions trophy, the 15-man squad list of the Indian team which will take part in the upcoming tournament was announced on Monday. The Virat Kohli- led side which will defend its title sees a good blend of youth and experience and is thereby expected to do well. (Photos: Meet India's 15-man Champions Trophy squad) While there was not much of a surprise with the names featuring in the squad, the fact that it was being announced during the IPL season led many to believe that performances in the cash-rich league would hold importance and might lead to selection in the national team. However this was not the case and once more raises the age-old question as to whether a player deserves to be selected for the national team based on good IPL performances. A few names, who have been performing well in the IPL and immediately crop into the mind are that of Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Suresh Raina and Gautam Gambhir. Both Pant and Raina have been in good form this season. While Gautam Gambhir has also been scoring heavily. Infact Gambhir's exclusion has drawn a lot of ire on social media. Basil Thampi, Sanju Samson are some of the other names which have excelled in IPL 10. But they all failed to make the cut. ALSO READ: Virat Kohli-led India squad for Champions Trophy: Everything you need to know Addressing the media chief selector, MSK Prasad spoke about the exclusion of these players and said,"We considered Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik and Shardul Thakur. They are on our standby list for the ICC Champions Trophy. We discussed Kuldeep. He narrowly missed out, but has a big role to play in future. Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya are youngsters we’ve been grooming. We’re extremely pleased with Rishabh and will groom him too.” About perfromances in the IPL he said,"We respect IPL but in the longer format, we have to also consider the English conditions that we are playing in. Not just IPL but one needs to take into account the performance of last one year also in such a big tournament." Prasad also spoke about the inclusion of R Ashwin and said, "Ashwin's selection was not a difficult decision. He's had rest, isn't out of form. That was our way of preparing him (Ashwin) for the Champions Trophy.” Here’s India’s 15-man squad for the ICC Champions Trophy: Virat Kohli (C), Rohit, Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami.
