Why KL Rahul is going to miss the first ODI against West Indies; read here

Indian team will start the ODI series against West Indies on February 6, in Ahmedabad. After suffering a humiliating 3-0 defeat against South Africa in the recently concluded ODI series, team India under the leadership of Rohit Sharma will be eager to start the series on a convincing note. KL Rahul, who had led the Indian team in the ODI series against the Proteas will take part in the ODI series against West Indies from the second ODI and regarding KL Rhaul’s absence lot of discussions have taken place. But the actual reason seems to have come out finally.

The reason

According to some reports, due to some personal reasons Rahul will miss the match on February 6. In a situation like this a lot of onus will be on skipper Rohit Sharma. It is important to mention that the ODI series against West Indies will be Rohit’s first ODI series as the permanent skipper of the Indian team. 

But apart from this, some other off the field reasons in recent times have made the situation a little difficult for the Indian team after four Indian cricketers- Shikhar Dhawan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Navdeep Saini and Shreyas Iyer, were tested positive for the Covid-19 virus. Later, Mayank Agarwal was added to the squad.

Standby players

If these players do not recover soon then standby players- Shahrukh Khan, Rishi Dhawan and R Sai Kishore, might get added to the squad.

In a situation like this, Indian batting lineup will be under some pressure against the West Indies bowling lineup.

The second ODI of the series will be held in Ahmedabad on February 9 and the third ODI will take place at the same venue two days later.

After the completion of the ODI series, the two teams will take on each other in a three-match T20I series. The T20I series will start on February 16 and all the three matches will take place in Kolkata.

India ODI squad: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wk), Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan