T20 World Cup 2026: This KKR star can be ideal to replace Washington Sundar

The certain injury has put a shade of uncertainty over Washington Sundar's future in the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026, which is scheduled to start from the first week of February. India will face the USA in the opening match of the tournament. Ahead of that, Sundar's injury remains as one of the talking points for the Indian cricket fans.

 Who deserves to be in the T20I squad in case Washington Sundar is unable to play? There are multiple contenders to replace the spin bowling allrounder. But there is one certain player who has been making runs constantly in the recent domestic tournaments for Jharkhand. We are talking about Anukul Roy, who has become one of the most lethal and reliable cricketers for the state team in recent times.

Roy, who is a part of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), can be an ideal replacement for Sundar. Roy played a pivotal role behind Jharkhand's success in the previous edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, and he is carrying the same form in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26 (VHT 2025-26) as well. In the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, the southpaw scored an unbeaten 40 runs with a strike rate of 200.00.

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Why Anukul Roy deserves to be in T20 World Cup 2026 squad?

On December 29, he got an unbeaten 98-run knock against Puducherry. After that, on January 3, Roy scored 72 runs for Jharkhand against a strong Kerala cricket team in the Vijay Hazare Trophy match. He can pick wickets as well with his left-arm slow orthodox bowling.

Last year in the Twenty20 format, Anukul Roy has played 12 matches to score a total of 303 runs at an batting average of 50.5 including a highest score of unbeaten 95. For Jharkhand, his batting average is slightly over 60, which shows Roy's recent dominance with the bat.