'Ensure Our Players Have Bharat on Chest': Virender Sehwag Urges BCCI to Change Indian Team Name on Jersey for ODI World Cup 2023

India batting legend Virender Sehwag has said the Indian cricket team should do away with the name ‘India’ on their official jerseys for the upcoming ICC ODI World Cup 2023, a name he says was given by the Britishers and the time has come to revert it to ‘Bharat’.

In a tweet right before the Indian cricket team’s announcement for the ODI World Cup, Sehwag wrote, “I have always believed a name should be one which instills pride in us. We are Bhartiyas, India is a name given by the British & it has been long overdue to get our original name ‘Bharat’ back officially. I urge the @BCCI @JayShah to ensure that this World Cup our players have Bharat on our chest.

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In another tweet, Sehwag pointed out how Netherlands used ‘Holland’ as their official name for the 1996 ODI World Cup and Burma also reverted to Mayanmar.

“In the 1996 World Cup, Netherlands came to play in the World cup in Bharat as Holland. In 2003 when we met them, they were the Netherlands & continue to be so. Burma have changed the name given by the British back to Myanmar. And many others have gone back to their original name,” he wrote.

The Indian cricket team on Tuesday named a 15-man squad for the upcoming world cup and as expected there were no major surprises. Only two players from the 17-man squad for the Asia Cup have failed to make the cut including Tilak Varma and Prasidh Krishna.

India will begin their world cup campaign against Australia in Chennai.

Full Squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya (vice-captain), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah