India announced their squad’s for the series against West Indies with few new faces making it to the final cut. While MS Dhoni expectedly has not been included, Virat Kohli will continue to lead the side in West Indies as well.
Apart from MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya, Vijay Shankar, and Jasprit Bumrah have not been included in the tour to West Indies. Dhoni will be with his army regiment and the other will be taking complete rest post their hectic schedule in IPL 12 followed by World Cup 2019. As expected India A’s performance against ongoing unofficial one day series with West Indies has been considered and Navdeep Saini and Khaleel Ahmed have been added. Vijay Shankar is still recovering from his toe injury whereas Shikhar Dhawan is ready for a comeback. Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey have been included in the ODI squad.
On the other hand, Washington Sundar, Krunal Pandya, and Deepak Chahar are the new recruits for Twenty 20 matches. Rishabh Pant will be the main wicketkeeper for all three formats so that’s why Wriddhiman Saha has been taken into consideration in Test series. The BCCI Chief Selector MSK Prasad said, “He (Dhoni) is unavailable for this series. We had certain road-maps till World Cup and we subsequently have some plans and we want to groom Pant and that is the plan right now. Pant hasn’t done anything wrong for his non-inclusion in the playing XI,” said Prasad while announcing the squad. Rishabh Pant will be playing all the three formats so we will have to look about his workload management. Saha and KS Bharat will come into picture at some point.”
While he mentioned that India A’s performance was noticed during the squad selection, he explained the reason for Mayank Agarawal being excluded. Mayank was called in the team as a replacement of injured Vijay Shankar during World Cup which said many eyebrows. Prasad clarified, ” Dhawan got injured, we already had a third opener in KL (Rahul). We didn’t have a left hander at top so the team management had requested for a left-hander and we had no option other than Pant.” He further added, “When Shankar was injured, Rahul had a big fall at the boundary so there was a medical emergency on whether he will continue or not. At that time, a written communication was given that a back-up opener was needed. That is when we went to Mayank.”
India’s squad for 3 T20Is:
Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (wk), Krunal Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Rahul Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini
India’s squad for 3 ODIs:
Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kedar Jadhav, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Navdeep Saini
India’s squad for 2 Tests:
Virat Kohli (C), Ajinkya Rahane (VC), Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk) Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav
Stay updated with all the cricketing action, follow Cricadium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
