Opener Shikhar Dhawan and wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik have been included in the 15-member squad for the three-match T20I series against Australia, the Board of Control for Cricket in India announced on Sunday (October 1), shortly after India wrapped up the ODI series 4-1.
Dhawan, who had missed the ODI series against Australia in order to attend to his unwell wife, comes in place of Ajinkya Rahane. It is also a comeback for the left-hander into the T20I set-up after being out of the reckoning for a while. He played the one-off T20I against West Indies earlier this year since India went in for the contest with the same fifteen they had picked for the five-match ODI series in the Caribbean series.
As a result, veteran seamer Ashish Nehra was not part of the Windies game and the Sri Lankan one-off T20I recently. The 38-year-old, who featured in every game during India’s last bilateral T20I series against England, manages to retain his spot as Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami continue to be left out of the shortest format.
Mandeep Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Rishabh Pant, Suresh Raina, Amit Mishra and Parvez Rasool are the others to have fetched the axe from the squad that featured against England at the start of the year. While Karthik has now replaced Pant as the backup wicketkeeper, the selectors continue to keep faith in Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel. Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, the first-choice spinners in the Test format, have once again not been considered.
Rohit Sharma, who was recently handed the vice-captaincy of the ODI outfit, will continue to be Virat Kohli’s deputy. The first T20I will be played in Ranchi on October 7 with the next two scheduled to be held in Guwahati (October 10) and Hyderabad (October 13).
Squad: Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Axar Patel
, shortly after India wrapped up the ODI series 4-1.){kind=link}