MUMBAI: With mounting pressure to bring radical changes in the team after a failed T20 World Cup campaign, Indian selectors dropped Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul from the T20I squad for the home series against Sri Lanka.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya will lead the new-look Indian side in the three-match T20 series, however, Rohit’s captaincy rein has been limited to the ODIs only for Sri Lanka’s white-ball tour of India, commencing next month.
While batting maestro Kohli and opener Rahul were named in the 50-overs squad only, out-of-form wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant did not find a place in either of the squads.
Veteran ODI opener Shikhar Dhawan, who led the team in three-game series against hosts New Zealand in December, was also excluded from the squad, with the likes of Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill expected to be given more chances at the top of India’s batting order.
Sri Lanka’s tour commences on January 3 with the first of the three T20I games in Mumbai before a three-match ODI series, scheduled from January 10 to 15.
India T20I squad: Hardik Pandya (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav (vc), Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Sanju Samson, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Harshal Patel, Umran Malik, Shivam Mavi, Mukesh Kumar.
India ODI squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (vc), Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umran Malik, Arshdeep Singh.
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