India vs New Zealand: Rohit Sharma named captain for T20I series; Venkatesh Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad in

Rohit Sharma was on Tuesday named the captain for India’s three-match T20I series against New Zealand starting on November 17 in Jaipur.

KL Rahul was named the vice captain of the 16-member squad in what will be Rahul Dravid’s first assignment as full-time head coach.

Outgoing T20I captain Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja are among the names not featuring in this series from the T20 World Cup campaign that came to a close on Monday with a win against Namibia. India did not qualify for the semifinals.

The BCCI tweet included a line that “Rohit Sharma named the T20I Captain for India.”

Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya, Shardul Thakur, Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Chahar are also missing from the squad named through a press release from the Board of Control for Cricket in India. No official statement is available on who has been dropped or rested.

Apart from Rohit and Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, R Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were retained from the group that was part of the 15-member World Cup squad that exited the tournament in the Super 12 stage.

Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel and Deepak Chahar, who were in the T20 World Cup reserves, are now in the main squad.

Yuzvendra Chahal and Mohammed Siraj, on the back of their impressive performances in the Indian Premier League for Royal Challengers Bangalore, made a comeback after missing out in the World Cup squad.

Three uncapped players earned selections. Venkatesh Iyer, who impressed for Kolkata Knight Riders in the UAE leg of IPL 2021, was among the changes made to the squad that was part of the World Cup. Delhi Capitals pacer Avesh Khan and leading wicket-taker of IPL 2021 Harshal Patel, also earned their first call-ups to the senior squad. They were part of the camp in UAE recently as net bowlers along with Venkatesh.

Ruturaj Gaikwad also returned to the squad having featured in Sri Lanka recently where Dravid was the interim coach.

India’s T20I squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (Vice-Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohd Siraj

The All-India Senior Selection Committee also picked the India ‘A’ squad for the South Africa tour scheduled to start from 23 November, 2021 in Bloemfontein. Priyank Panchal was named captain while Prithvi Shaw and Devdutt Padikkal were among the names included.

India A tour of South Africa: Gujarat’s Priyank Panchal named captain, Prithvi Shaw included

The team will play three four-day matches during the tour. The Indian senior team is set to tour South Africa for their next assignment.

India ‘A’ squad for South Africa tour: Priyank Panchal (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Sarfaraz Khan, Baba Aparajith, Upendra Yadav (wicket-keeper), K Gowtham, Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Umran Malik, Ishan Porel, Arzan Nagwaswalla