India batter Ruturaj Gaikwad once again failed to cement his place in the side's ODI set-up and got dropped for the three-match series against New Zealand that will commence from January 11. He was snubbed from the team despite his stellar performance in the South Africa ODIs that even saw him register his maiden hundred in the format.
India's ODI series against South Africa in November had seen Gaikwad return to the format after almost two years. After being dismissed for just eight runs in the first match and failing to impress on his long return, the 28-year-old showed drastic improvement in the second game.
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He came out to bat at No.4 and formed a mammoth partnership alongside Virat Kohli. Gaikwad didn't play any reckless shots and pounced on loose deliveries whenever he got the chance. After spending some time on the crease, the duo completely shifted gears and started smashing opposing bowlers all around the stadium.
Gaikwad eventually went on to reach his century and did so after facing just 77 deliveries. Though he failed to go much further and eventually got dismissed by Marco Jansen for 105 runs, he had still made a firm statement towards the selectors and it looked like he would be given chances in the Men in Blue's ODI assignments in the coming future.
Gaikwad's performance in Vijay Hazare Trophy
However, Gaikwad instead finds himself out of the squad for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand at home. This must be devastating for the batter as he has also been putting up great performances for Maharashtra in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. He had played a phenomenal knock of 124 against Uttarakhand in the fourth round and followed that up with a gritty innings of 66 against Mumbai in Round 5. It remains to be seen if he will be picked for India's assignments in the future.
India drop 2 more players
Meanwhile, the other two players that India have decided to drop for the New Zealand ODIs are Dhruv Jurel and Tilak Varma. While the former hadn't played any games during the series against South Africa, the latter had only featured in one match but didn't get the opportunity to bat.
India's squad for New Zealand ODIs: Shubman Gill (C), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Shreyas Iyer (VC)*, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd Siraj, Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal