The Indian team selection for the West Indies series threw up a few surprises. Rookie Punjab all-rounder Naman Dhir and Jammu and Kashmir seamer Auqib Nabi earned their maiden call-ups to India’s ODI squad for the upcoming series against the West Indies, while veterans Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant were ignored for separate reasons. India will play three ODIs and five T20Is against the West Indies starting September 27 in Thiruvananthapuram.
KL Rahul will be the vice-captain in the absence of Shreyas Iyer . The T20I side will comprise mostly of the Asian Games squad, with Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav coming in place of Yash Thakur and Vipraj Nigam . Also, in a significant move, the selectors pulled Nitish Kumar Reddy out of the Asian Games squad to include him in the ODI side for the West Indies series.
It is understood that his services are of greater importance in the ODI set-up rather than the T20 competition at the Asian Games, where most teams are no match for India’s quality and might.
In the case of Rishabh Pant, it is understood that the selectors went by feedback from important members of the team management, who feel that the maverick wicketkeeper-batter hasn’t done justice to his phenomenal talent when it comes to white-ball cricket. Pant has been named captain of the Rest of India team for the Irani Cup, with burly Mumbai batter Sarfaraz Khan as the vice-captain. Akash Deep, who has been out with a back stress fracture for the past seven months, has been picked in the Rest of India squad subject to fitness.
He is recovering and is nearing completion of his Return To Play protocols before he can be picked for the October 1-5 game in Srinagar.
