India men’s national team’s chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced the squad for the three-ODI series at home against Australia at home. The series was expected to be a dress rehearsal for the ODI World Cup but in the press conference, it was revealed that skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, and Kuldeep Yadav have been rested for the first two ODIs.
In Rohit’s absence, KL Rahul has been named the captain of the side for the first two games of the series. As India will travel the most in the upcoming World Cup, the decision to rest them has been taken after their Asia Cup 2023 triumph in Sri Lanka.
"Rohit (Sharma) and Virat (Kohli) have been around forever and obviously Hardik is an important player for us, we want to manage him," Agarar said.
"Kuldeep is in great form. It also gives us a chance to look at some of the other guys. That's the thing. Luckily, we got a fair amount of cricket in the Asia Cup.
"If not we might have looked at it some other way. At some stage or the other, more than physical, guys sometimes need a mental break which is not such a bad thing, leading up the tournament (Cricket World Cup).
"But comes the third game, everyone will be available to play. We will play our World Cup squad. It does give us a chance to play some other guys who have been sitting outside and it has been a strong squad," the 45-year-old added.
The four players will be back for the third and final ODI of the series which will be played at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot on September 27, just a couple of days ahead of first warm-up game against England.
India’s 15-member ODI squad for first two ODIs: KL Rahul (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, Tilak Varma, Prasidh Krishna, Ravichandran Ashwin
India’s ODI 17-member squad for third ODI: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya, Virat Kohli, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Washington Sundar
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