Rishabh Pant and Kuldeep Yadav were named in place of Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah in the 15-member squad for India’s tour of West Indies.
Immediately after the Champions Trophy, India will be playing five ODIs and one T20 against WI, starting 23 June.
While both Rishabh and Kuldeep were stand byes for the Champions Trophy, the remaining cricketers, currently playing the tournament, will continue to West Indies with Virat Kohli as captain.
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In case of Rohit, who is coming back after a hamstring surgery, the team management probably don't want him to play too many back to back matches as he has already played a month and a half of Indian Premier League followed by the Champions Trophy.
There has also been tremendous workload on Bumrah since the start of IPL and the West Indies tour will give Mohammed Shami some good game time.
With Rohit not there, Pant could be a choice for opener but as has been the norm, Ajinkya Rahane will be the top contender to open the innings with Shikhar Dhawan.
Chinaman Kuldeep, after a commendable show in the Dharamsala Test against Australia makes it to the ODI squad after the 2014 series against Sri Lanka, where he did not get a game.
While naming the squad for the Champions Trophy, Chairman of Selectors MSK Prasad had revealed that Rishabh Pant and Kuldeep Yadav along with Shardul Thakur, Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik had “narrowly missed” out.
Team:
Virat Kohli (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Ajinkya Rahane, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Yuvraj Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav and Dinesh Karthik.
Fixture of the Tour
1st ODI: 23 June
2nd ODI: 25 June
3rd ODI: 30 June
4th ODI: 2 July
5th ODI: 6 July
1st T20: 9 July
(With inputs from PTI.)
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