After all drama, Virat Kohli said that he would be available for the upcoming ODI series. There were sources being quote in the media saying, “Yes, Kohli has asked for a small break in January to spend some time with his family. It effectively means that he would miss the ODI series against South Africa.” And the news came just after Rohit Sharma was ruled out of the Test series because of a left hamstring injury.
All of these incidents created a lot of controversy but then Virat Kohli came up to clarify everything. He said that he would be playing the ODI series but also gave birth to a new set of controversies. The Indian cricket team captain denied the claims made by the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly earlier. Ganguly had earlier mentioned that Kohli was asked to retain the T20I captaincy but Kohli did not agree. Virat Kohli however informed, “When I left the T20I captaincy, I had first approached BCCI and intimated them of my decision and laid down my point of view in front of them (office bearers). I gave the reasons why I wanted to quit T20 captaincy and my view point was received very nicely. There was no offence, no hesitation and not for once was I told that ‘you should not leave T20 captaincy’.”
The BCCI has not released any media statement since then and it is best to wait for the same to come to any conclusion. Meanwhile Indian cricket Test squad reached South Africa and would be taking on field from December 26. The squad for the three-match ODI series is yet to be informed and there is a prominent chance of few interesting faces making the cut.
The way Ruturaj Gaikwad has played the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he can expect a call up for the South Africa tour. He has smashed four hundreds in the five matches he played for Maharashtra and also brought 600 runs to lead the domestic tournament. the second top scorer of the tournament is Manan Vohra from Chhattisgarh with 379 runs to his name from five matches. If Ruturaj gets a call, Indian team will have potential openers in him including KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. This can well mean a warning for Shikhar.
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Another name that is making headlines nowadays from the Vijay Hazare Trophy is the Kolkata Knight Riders star Venkatesh Iyer. The all-rounder can be an ideal replacement for Hardik Pandya. He is playing in the middle-order for Madhya Pradesh and already is one of the top five run-getters of the tournament. Iyer can be donning the ODI jersey for team India in the same role. There will be a healthy competition between Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan as they are also close contenders for middle-order batting positions.
Ravichandran Ashwin should come to the squad easily as the primary spinner along with the regulars like Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah. After consistent good performance, Harshal Patel is likely to be included to the squad as well. With multiple players performing brilliantly India have some interesting backups available to choose from for Rohit Sharma’s first assignment as the ODI captain of Indian cricket team.
Rohit Sharma (captain), Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan/Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Venkatesh Iyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Deepak Chahar, Ruturaj Gaikwad
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