IND vs SA: Two star players dropped from India's T20I squad for South Africa series, Know who's in and who's out

India have decided to drop both Rinku Singh and Nitish Kumar Reddy from their squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against South Africa that will commence from December 9. The Men in Blue have unveiled their 15-member squad for the assignment and while both Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya are likely to return to action, Rinku and Reddy find themselves out  of the set-up. 

Both the players were present in India's squad for the T20I series against Australia in November. While Rinku had played just one match in that assignment, Reddy had gotten ruled out due to a quadriceps injury and had to spend time on the sidelines in order to recover. Though the 22-year-old had made a comeback in the Test series against South Africa, he has now been dropped from the team.

Rinku's phenomenal form in domestic cricket

This comes as a big blow for both players, but especially Rinku as he has delivered with the bat for Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket as of recent.  After scoring centuries against Andhra  Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy, he also played an impressive knock of 65 against Madhya Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He was  expected to be selected in India's T20I squad, but has been dropped instead.

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Meanwhile, both Shubman and Hardik have been selected in India's squad for the upcoming T20I assignment. While the former had been out of action since sustaining a neck injury in the first Test against the Proteas, the latter has been on the sidelines since the  Asia Cup in September. He  proved his fitness in Baroda's recent fixture against Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Squads for both teams -

India's squad for T20I series vs South Africa: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC)*, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Sanju Samson (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar.

South Africa's squad for T20I series: Aiden Markram, Ottneil Baartman, Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Quinton de Kock, Tony de Zorzi, Donovan Ferreira, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, George Linde, Kwena Maphaka, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Tristan Stubbs.