Rohit Sharma will take on the T20I captaincy reins from Virat Kohli for the upcoming series against New Zealand. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the squad for the series on Tuesday. Virat Kohli, for whom the T20 World Cup was the last assignment as T20I captain has been rested. KL Rahul, meanwhile, has been named as vice-captain. Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja, all four of whom played the recently-concluded T20 World Cup, have also been rested.
A few new faces have also been named in the squad. Kolkata Knight Riders’ Venkatesh Iyer and Chennai Super Kings’ Ruturaj Gaikwad, both of whom scored plenty of runs at the 2021 Indian Premier League, have been included in the squad. Iyer impressed with his all-round performances – with the bat he scored 370 runs at an average of 41.11 and strike rate of 128.47, while with the ball he picked up three wickets from 10 matches. Gaikwad, on the other hand, was the highest run-scorer in IPL 2021 with 635 runs at an average and strike rate of 45.35 and 136.26 respectively.
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Harshal Patel, the highest wicket-taker of IPL 2021, has also received a call-up. Mohammed Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal, meanwhile, have been recalled. India will host New Zealand for 3 T20Is starting from 17th November in Rajkot. The second and third T20I will be played in Ranchi and Kolkata respectively. The series will also mark the start of Rahul Dravid’s tenure as India’s head coach after Ravi Shastri’s term ended at the recent T20 World Cup.
Full squad for the New Zealand series: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (Vice-Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj
India A Squad for South Africa Series Announced
The BCCI also announced a squad for India ‘A’ that will tour South Africa for three four-day matches starting on November 23 in Bloemfontein. Umran Malik, who impressed with his pace in the few games he played in IPL 2021, has been named in the squad. Priyank Panchal will lead the side which also has the likes of Prithvi Shaw, Navdeep Saini, Rahul Chahar and Ishan Porel.
Full Squad: Priyank Panchal (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, Baba Aparajith, Upendra Yadav (wicket-keeper), K Gowtham, Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Umran Malik, Ishan Porel, Arzan Nagwaswalla
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