BCCI on Friday announced the squad for the upcoming Test and ODI series against West Indies, which gets underway from July 12. The series starts with the red-ball format in Windsor Park, Dominica, and the second Test will be played at the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad. The action then moves to the limited-over format with the first encounter set to be played at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
In a major development Cheteshwar Pujara has been dropped from the Test squad, and Yashasvi Jaiswal is the new entrant. However, what is more surprising is Ajinkya Rahane's reappointment is the team's vice-captain.
Rahane was not part of the Indian squad for almost 16 months but after a superb outing in the domestic circuit and the Indian Premier League (IPL), he made a comeback to the national side for the World Test Championship (WTC) finals.
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Rahane made good use of the opportunity and scored 89 in the first innings and 46 in the second, accumulating the highest number of runs among all the Indian batters in a losing cause.
{{/usCountry}}Rahane made good use of the opportunity and scored 89 in the first innings and 46 in the second, accumulating the highest number of runs among all the Indian batters in a losing cause.
{{/usCountry}}His reappointment as team's vice-captain drew mixed reactions on social media with a section even calling him as the next replacement for Rohit, who has faced a lot of flak following the 209-run hammering against Australia in the WTC final.
However, a few even slammed the management for taking the easy route and not molding a successor for Rohit.
TEST Squad: Rohit Sharma (Capt), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ajinkya Rahane (VC), KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini.
ODI Squad: Rohit Sharma (Capt), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Surya Kumar Yadav, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (VC), Shardul Thakur, R Jadeja, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohd. Siraj, Umran Malik, Mukesh Kumar.