Posted by India have named a 16 man squad for the upcoming T20I series against New Zealand, Rohit Sharma to lead India, KL Rahul named vice-captain. It’s been a week that’s seen a couple positive changes in Indian cricket, started with Rahul Dravid’s appointment as head coach a week back and then appointment of leadership roles to Rohit and Rahul.
Previous week, BCCI appointed Rahul Dravid as India’s head coach, there was no interview round and Rahul Dravid was unanimously elected as Team India’s head coach. Rahul Dravid will begin his tenure with the Indian team starting from New Zealand series; below is what Rahul Dravid said on his appointment : “It is an absolute honour to be appointed as the new Head Coach of the Indian Cricket Team and I am really looking forward to this role. Under Mr Shastri, the team has done very well, and I hope to work with the team to take this forward. Having worked closely with most of the boys either at NCA, U19 and India A setup, I know they have the passion and desire to improve every day. There are some marquee multi-team events in the next two years, and I look forward to working with the players and the support staff to achieve our potential.”
While Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami have been rested from the New Zealand T20I series, Hardik Pandya and Varun Chakravarty have faced the axe from India’s T20I squad. Shardul Thakur too hasn’t featured in the squad and there’s no clarity on his omission. The squads seeing as many as 5 openers that’ll force the team to play a couple openers in the middle order who’ll help Rishabh Pant.
INDIA’S T20I SQUAD FOR KIWI SERIES : Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul (VC), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj.
The New Zealand series will commence on 17th of November, three T20I’s lined up on 17th, 19th and 21st of November in Jaipur, Ranchi and Kolkata respectively.
BCCI’s press release also saw them name the India A squad for South Africa tour. The team will play 3 four-day games during the tour. The Indian senior team is set to tour South Africa for their next overseas assignment.
It’s been a reward for many, Umran Malik who impressed spectators with his raw pace finds himself in the squad. Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prithvi Shaw and Arzan Nagaswalla who were a part of the test squad in England also feature in the squad and are likely to feature in the staring XI. The squad will be lead by Gujarat’s, Priyank Panchal.
INDIA A SQUAD FOR SOUTH AFRICA TOUR : Priyank Panchal (C), Prithvi Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, Baba Aparajith, Upendra Yadav (wk), Krishnappa Gowtham, Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Umran Malik, Ishan Porel, Arzan Nagwaswalla.
The 3 four-day games will be played at Bloemfontein. The opening game will be played from 23rd to 26th of November, the second will be played from 29th of November to 2nd of December and the final, 3rd game will be played from 6th to 9th of December.
Bureau of sports 