While the announcement of the 15-membered squad of the Indian team for the ICC World Cup 2019 is expected to be made on April 15, BCCI’s chief selector MSK Prasad has announced that the performances of the players in the ongoing IPL will not be taken into consideration for the selection of the team for the WC.

“No, I don’t think we are looking at IPL showing,” MSK Prasad, the chairman of the selection committee reportedly said. When asked whether a strong performance in the franchise league will help the selectors seal those undecided slots, he said, “No, not really. We are quite clear.” The chairman already announced in February that the core of the World Cup team has been decided and that IPL performances might have little or no influence on the eventual selection. The debate is apparently over the Number 4 spot and the fourth pacer.

Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma earlier expressed his thoughts on the same, stating, “I feel IPL should not be the criteria for team selection. You can’t select a team for the 50-over format from a 20-over event, it’s my personal opinion. IPL is a different ball game. Its franchise cricket and yes, form matters a lot. But in the last four years, we have played enough ODI matches, enough T20 cricket. That should be enough to understand these are the players that we want.”

Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, KL Rahul, Dinesh Karthik, Kedar Jadhav and Ambati Rayudu are some of the names in consideration for various positions in the middle order. The World Cup starts on May 30 in England while India will have its first warm-up match against New Zealand on May 25.