The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided that the standby players in the Asia Cup squad — Yashasvi Jaiswal, Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel — won’t be travelling to the UAE, where the tournament will take place. 

The decision, as per reports in PTI, has been taken so that the travelling group of the Indian men’s team remains lean. The players will be flown in to Dubai if and when needed, and since it’s a short-duration flight, it won’t be an issue to get them to the team in a short duration. 

Additionally, a BCCI official was quoted by PTI as saying that the players would be permitted to travel to Dubai right from the city where they are based, as the travel time isn’t much to the UAE, and easy connectivity is available from most major airports in India. 

“Factoring in the logistical convenience, the players will be allowed to fly in to Dubai from their respective cities,” the official said, as quoted by PTI.

“Obviously, a few will travel from Mumbai, but to ask some of the others to first come to Mumbai and then fly to Dubai doesn’t make sense. In any case, Dubai is a short-duration flight compared to other international flights.”

The Indian squad will reach Dubai by September 4 for the tournament, which will begin on September 9. India will play their first game of the Asia Cup on September 10 against the UAE. 

India’s squad for Asia Cup 2025

Surya Kumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (wk), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh