India have taken the fairly unsurprising step of pulling Mohammed Siraj out of their T20 tour of Ireland and England, citing simple workload management. In his place comes Gujarat Titans team-mate Prasidh Krishna.
“Following discussions between the BCCI Medical Team and the Team Management, Siraj has been advised a period of rest as part of his workload management programme,” the BCCI noted. “The decision has been taken as a precautionary measure to ensure adequate recovery ahead of a long international season.”
The numbers back the move. Siraj bowled in all 17 matches of GT’s IPL run, then jumped straight into the one-off Test against Afghanistan in New Chandigarh. Prasidh featured 12 times in the same IPL campaign and shared the new ball with Siraj in that Test, so he is already up to international speed.
Prasidh’s T20I record is still modest: five games, eight wickets, economy rate 11.00. His last outing in the format was November 2023 in Guwahati against Australia, when he mixed lively pace with the odd full-toss. “He’s got the pace we like, and a knack for awkward bounce,” a member of the support staff said earlier this year. For context, Siraj’s T20I economy sits just under ten, so the swap is hardly a gamble—more a rotation.
Prasidh was already named in the squad for the three-match ODI series versus Afghanistan that starts 13 June; Siraj had been left out of that list too. The management clearly want their senior quick fresh for England’s ODIs in August and the trips to Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and New Zealand that follow.
Fixture list (local time)
• Ireland v India, Belfast – 26 & 28 June
• England v India, five T20Is – 1-11 July
India T20I squad for Ireland & England
Shreyas Iyer (capt), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma (vice-capt), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
The selectors will hope the brief break gives Siraj a clean run at the rest of 2026, while offering Prasidh another chance to translate domestic promise into international control.
