India's young T20 stars face first real test against World Cup foes Australia

Suryakumar Yadav will have to suppress the massive disappointment of an ICC World Cup 2023 final defeat somewhere in the deeper confines of his heart whilst leading a bunch of GenNext stars against a mighty Australian side in a fivematch India vs Australia T20I series starting on Thursday The scars of defeat are too deep and it would take time for those wounds to healWith just around 96 hours of turnaround time from World Cup to the next series it hardly leaves Yadav with any chance of introspection as he gets ready to play his favourite formatAs the captain of the side he will not only want to win the series but also check out some of the best young Indian exponents of the shortest format who will be on trial for next years ICC T20 World Cup in June and July in the Americas West Indies and USAThe young guns like Yashasvi Jaiswal Rinku Singh Tilak Verma Jitesh Sharma and notsoyoung Mukesh Kumar have all made their international debuts in past few months but their first real Test will be against a very strong Australian T20 side which will have some of their World Cup heroes like opener Travis Head Glenn Maxwell legspinner Adam Zampa and former skipper Steve Smith in its ranksAlso ReadThe best and worsts of World Cup 2023Then there are IPL performers like Marcus Stoinis Nathan Ellis Tim David to name a few and even the T20 side without its premier pacers bears a formidable look under Matthew Wade who will be leading in the seriesWith skipper Rohit Sharma Virat Kohli and KL Rahul not being considered for the shortest format since the 2022 T20 World Cup semifinal defeat one will get a real idea about the bunch of players earmarked by the national selectors for next years mega eventRinku has been pretty impressive in his short India stint so far and ditto for Yashasvi Tilak and Mukesh while Jitesh despite his debut in Hangzhou will have to wait for his turn for a longer rope in presence of Ishan KishanHaving played mediocre attacks of West Indies Ireland and some of the B grade sides at the Asian Games it will be a trial by fire for these youngsters who would like to make an impression in whatever chances they get during this series and two ensuing ones involving South Africa away and Afghanistan homeThe Australian pace attack comprising Kane Richardson Nathan Ellis Sean Abbott and leftarmer Jason Behrendorff is way better in terms of quality compared to what they have faced till now in their very short but eventful T2OI careersAlso Read India look at young guns to take their legacy forward after WC heartbreakThere are 11 T20 International games that India play before IPL which will be a twomonth affair before the Men in Blue hit the T20 World Cup modeHence the next two months will be very important for these youngsters as they would like to further consolidate their spots for that World CupHow interim coach VVS Laxman works around the batting order will be interesting as someone like Shubman Gill is bound to comeback for the series against South Africa and there would be too many options at the top orderIt is expected that Ruturaj Gaikwad and one among either Jaiswal or Ishan Kishan will be opening the batting keeping the rightleft combination in mindSurya who is the designated vicecaptain when Hardik Pandya is there to lead the side will bat at No 3 or 4 depending on whether the team management decides to play both Jaiswal and KishanAlso ReadCheers to tearsUnlike the ODI team the T20I side has a bevy of lefthanders in fact seven of them Jaiswal Kishan Tilak Varma Rinku Singh along with allrounders Axar Patel Shivam Dube and Washington SundarIt is understood that T20 teams thinktank is looking at Rinku and Jitesh as the two designated finishers one of whom is likely to get a slotHowever the biggest test of this series will be the bowlers Ravi Bishnoi will get a number of games as selectors want to look beyond Yuzvendra Chahal while Prasidh Krishna Avesh Khan Mukesh Kumar and Arshdeep Singh will be rotated during the seriesAxar Patel having recovered from hamstring injury is expected to play all five games in the seriesWith agency inputs