Okay.L. Rahul will lead India within the the ODI collection towards South Africa, which begins on January 19. With common white ball captain Rohit Sharma ‘not match’, the nationwide choice committee, led by Chetan Sharma, has determined at hand over the accountability to Okay.L. Rahul.
“We need to groom KL Rahul. He’s a participant for all three codecs. He has proved his management qualities. KL is the perfect one who can deal with the facet,” Sharma mentioned, making it clear that the selectors didn’t need to take an opportunity with Rohit, who’s but to achieve full health.
“Rohit just isn’t match, he’s in rehab. We by no means wished to take likelihood with him if he isn’t 100 per cent match,” Sharma mentioned.
Whereas Virat Kohli shall be out there for the collection, the selectors additionally named the seasoned Shikhar Dhawan within the squad. Jasprit Bumrah would be the vice-captain for the three-match ODI collection. Younger weapons Ruturaj Gaikwad and Venkatesh Iyer earned call-ups.
Dhawan’s final worldwide project was in July when he led the second-string limited-overs facet for a T20I and ODI collection in Sri Lanka. A lot of the senior gamers had been engaged in a five-match Take a look at collection in England concurrently. Dhawan had a combined outing, amassing 128 runs – together with an unbeaten 86 – within the three ODIs. However managed simply 86 within the three T20Is.
Regardless of scoring 207 in eight innings through the second leg of the IPL for Delhi Capitals, Dhawan was not picked for the T20 World Cup and the T20I collection towards New Zealand, the selectors insisting that he was “rested”.
Earlier, there have been speculations that Kohli wished to take a break from the ODI collection to be with the household. Nonetheless, earlier than leaving for South Africa, India’s crimson ball captain had rubbished such speculations.
Rohit, who was promoted as India’s ODI captain, needed to miss out on the Take a look at collection towards South Africa as a consequence of a hamstring harm. Whereas Priyank Panchal changed him, Rohit left no stone unturned to be match forward of the ODI collection. The captain additionally underwent a rehab programme on the Nationwide Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, however the selectors didn’t need to rush issues.
“We thought that Rohit ought to do rehab and work on his health. There’s a lot cricket and no participant needs to be injured. So, we thought that with the T20 World Cup nearing, we should always be certain that Rohit is absolutely match. We had a great chat with Rohit,” Sharma mentioned.
The chairman of selectors additionally made it clear that in the meanwhile, the choice committee is simply specializing in the T20 World Cup, to be held in Australia later within the 12 months. “We, the 5 selectors are going World Cup to World Cup. We positively are getting ready for the 2023 World Cup, however our first goal is the T20 World Cup. We’re not pondering past that. We’ve got no proper to imagine who shall be match or not. Nobody needs to be unfit. We’re grooming KL Rahul and we even have Bumrah. We wish them to study and that shall be good for Indian cricket,” Sharma mentioned.
The Squad
KL Rahul (Capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Ruturaj Gaekwad, Virat Kohli, Surya Kumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj.