Virat Kohli Rested, Umesh Yadav Dropped for Home T20 Series vs SL

India play Sri Lanka in three T20s starting from the 9th of February.

Three back-to-back half centuries against Australia and Virat Kohli has been given some off time by the Indian selectors as the team start their next campaign - a home T20 series against Sri Lanka.

Kohli for has been on non-stop duty for India since October last year and played 10 ODIs, 5 T20s and 4 Test matches on the trot. In the recently concluded T20 series against Australia, the vice-captain was named the Man of the Series after scoring 199 runs at an average of 199.

Players Dropped

The selection panel met on Monday to chose the team for the 3 T20s against Sri Lanka and chose to drop Himachal Pradesh all-rounder Rishi Dhawan, Punjab’s Gurkeerat Mann and pacer Umesh Yadav who failed to make an impact in Australia.

Replacements

While Kohli has been rested, fellow Delhi cricketer Pawan Negi has been named in the squad as cover for Ravindra Jadeja. Bhuvneshwar Kumar will return to the Indian dressing room after being forced to sit out of the T20 series after getting stitches on a split webbing on his hand.

Manish Pandey, who made a comeback to the ODI team and scored a 100 in Sydney has been given another shot in the shortest format as well. He last played T20s for India against Zimbabwe in july 2015.

Fixtures

India play Sri Lanka in three T20s starting 9th of February. The opener will be played at the MCA International Stadium in Pune on Tuesday. Delhi were named the hosts for the second fixture but that game will now be played in Ranchi on the 12th of Feb after administrative trouble at the DDCA forced BCCI to make the switch. The third T20 will be played on the 14th at the VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam.

T20I Team: MS Dhoni (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Pawan Negi.