Sanju Samson Ignored As Jaydev Unadkat Returns To ODI Squad After More Than A Decade
New Delhi: The BCCI on Saturday (February 19) announced the squad for the three match ODI series against Australia.
The 50-overs contest will start on March 17 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the next matches will be played on March 19 at the Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam and at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on March 22.
Rohit Sharma will miss the first ODI due to personal reasons but will be available to for the next two matches. In place of Rohit, Hardik Pandya will captain India in the series opener for the first time in ODI format. In the 18-member squad selected for India’s last assignment before the start of IPL 2023, all ODI regulars have been selected but there was no place for Jasprit Bumrah, who is yet to recover from the back injury.
Bumrah has not played for India since September 25 last year. Among the other notable exclusion was Sanju Samson. Sanju was regular for India in ODI format till last year but this year, he has failed to find a place in the side. He got injured during the first T20I against Sri Lanka on January 3 because of which he missed the remainder of the series. But now, he has recovered and despite that he wasn’t considered.
Whereas in a surprise move, the BCCI have included Jaydev Unadkat in the ODI squad for the first time in more than a decade. The Saurashtra player is getting rewarded for his excellent show in domestic cricket.
India’s ODI squad for Australia series: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (VC), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umran Malik, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Jaydev Unadkat