As India’s five-match T20I tour to Zimbabwe gets underway on Saturday, July 6, three stalwarts – Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube – are not playing in the first T20I despite being part of the squad. The reason for their absence is that the trio were part of India’s 2024 T20 World Cup-winning squad, which caught stuck in Barbados till Wednesday due to Hurricane Beryl, and then spent the entire Thursday celebrating in Delhi and Mumbai. The trio have departed for Zimbabwe capital Harare in the early hours of Saturday morning, and are expected to feature from the third T20I.

The first two T20Is of the tour to Zimbabwe take place on back-to-back days, on July 6 and 7, meaning that Samson, Jaiswal and Dube won’t get enough time to prepare before the second T20I, instead expecting to play from the third T20I on July 10.

The T20I series is crucial for Samson and Jaiswal, who did not play a single game in the T20 World Cup. On the other hand, Dube was included in the squad for the Zimbabwe tour despite playing every game of the T20 World Cup, as a replacement for the injured Nitish Reddy.

Samson enjoyed the best IPL season of his career in 2024, scoring 531 runs, but had to play second-fiddle to Rishabh Pant for the wicket-keeper spot in Team India. Jaiswal also had to accept a back-up role to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, despite piling up more than 1,000 runs in the two most recent IPL seasons.

With Kohli, Rohit and Jadeja retired from T20Is, impressing across five games in the Zimbabwe tour could pave the pathway to a regular Team India spot for some of the youngsters.

Shubman Gill, who narrowly missed out on India’s T20 World Cup squad, is leading Team India in Zimbabwe. Samson’s Rajasthan Royals teammates Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel made their T20I debut in the first Zimbabwe game, as did Abhishek Sharma.