NEW DELHI: Ravindra Jadeja has made a comeback to India’s ODI team for the home series against the West Indies.
TOI had reported on Wednesday that the selectors would be forced to pick the veteran all-rounder since Axar Patel and Washington Sundar will both be playing the Asian Games in Japan. The national selectors, who announced the team on Wednesday, also pulled Nitish Kumar Reddy out of the Asian Games squad and picked him to play the ODI series .
Pandya not fit
TOI has learnt that the selectors and team management weren’t convinced that Hardik Pandya would be ready to play the series starting on Sept 27.
Sources said that the selectors want to focus on grooming a seam-bowling allrounder backup for Pandya keeping in mind next year’s ODI World Cup in South Africa.
“The Centre of Excellence has reported that Pandya is fit enough to bowl six overs at full intensity. The selectors have named Pandya in the India ‘A’ squad for the One-day series against Australia ‘A’ which starts on Oct 6, but that is subject to fitness.
The Asian Games squad will now have 14 players instead of 15,” a BCCI source said.
Varun Chakravarthy has been replaced by leg-spinner Vipraj Nigam. Middle-order batter Naman Dhir has earned his maiden India callup while Jammu and Kashmir pacer Auqib Nabi too has been named in the ODI squad.
Pant ignored, to captain RoI
Dhruv Jurel has been preferred as the second wicket-keeper in the ODI team instead of Rishabh Pant in the absence of Ishan Kishan, who will be busy at the Asian Games.
The team management, it is understood, objected to Pant’s inclusion. Pant has been named the captain of the Rest of India (RoI) team for the Irani Cup due to start in Srinagar on Oct 1.
Bumrah rested from T20I series
As expected, Jasprit Bumrah has been rested from the T20I series against West Indies which starts on Oct 6.
Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav have been selected for the T20Is. Interestingly, Chakravarthy has also been ignored for the T20I series.
- ODI team for Windies series: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli , Ruturaj Gaikwad, KL Rahul (vc, wk], Dhruv Jurel (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Mohammed Siraj, Auqib Nabi, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Naman Dhir.
- T20I team: Shreyas Iyer (c), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Tilak Varma (vc), Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav.