India have rested leading spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja for the three-match Twenty20 international series against England, the country's cricket board said on Monday.
Off-spinner Ashwin and left-arm colleague Jadeja played all five tests against England, leading the hosts to a 4-0 victory in the rubber. They also led India's spin attack in their 2-1 victory in the three-match one-day international series.
Leg-spinner Amit Mishra and off-break bowler Parvez Rasool have replaced the duo in the 15-man squad.
India will play three T20Is against England on January 26 (Kanpur), January 29 (Nagpur) and February 1 (Bangalore).
Ashwin claimed 27 and 28 wickets respectively in India's 3-0 sweep of New Zealand and 4-0 victory over England in the five-Test series, while Jadeja finished with 26 scalps against England and 14 against New Zealand.
The 34-year-old Mishra last played against New Zealand in October, when he finished with figures of 5 for 18 in the fifth and final ODI. He was in the squad for the three-match ODI series against England but didn't get a game.
Rasool, the offspinner, who played his only ODI in 2014 and hasn't played a T20I to date, was selected on the basis of his impressive performance in the Ranji Trophy.
Following the 3-0 series win over New Zealand in the Test series last year, both Ashwin and Jadeja were not picked for the subsequent ODI series in order to keep them fresh for the five Tests against England.
Squad
Virat Kohli (captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Lokesh Rahul, Mandeep Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Amit Mishra, Parvez Rasool, Yuzvendra Chahal, Manish Pandey, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)