The Indian squad for the home series against Bangladesh, involving three T20Is and two Test matches, has been announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday.
The biggest highlights from the Test and T20I squads include Virat Kohli being rested for the T20I series beginning on 3 November in order to manage his workload. Except for the T20Is and the last two One Day Internationals (ODIs) against New Zealand, Kohli has played non-stop cricket this year. In India’s 56 games since October 2018, the Men in Blue’s captain has featured in 48 of them.
In his absence, Rohit Sharma is set to lead the side in the T20Is. Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube and Shardul Thakur also find themselves in the T20I squad for the Bangladesh series while Yuzvendra Chahal has made a return to the team.
After a clinical performance in the Test Series against South Africa, the selection committee has not made any changes to the Test squad. Jasprit Bumrah is still not available for selection because of injury and Kuldeep Yadav who complained of shoulder pain ahead of the final Test against South Africa is back in the squad.
Pace bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar has yet again failed to make it to both the teams while KL Rahul has been left out of the Test squads after a long run in which he failed to secure a place for himself and new opener Rohit Sharma making a dream come back and making the vacant opening slot his own.
While the Bangladesh series was threatened earlier because of a strike called by their players, it is now being reported that that series will now proceed as scheduled and the players have called-off the strike since all their demands have been met.
Squads
India’s squad for Test series: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Saha (wk), R Jadeja, R Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant.
India’s squad for T20I series: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant(wk), Washington Sundar, Krunal Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, Deepak Chahar, Khaleel Ahmed, Shivam Dube, Shardul Thakur.