A great deal of surprise was not expected from the Indian cricket selectors as they met on Monday afternoon to name the teams for upcoming tours of Zimbabwe and West Indies.
Expectedly, the flight for Zimbabwe will have unknown names along with the only notable presentee in MS Dhoni.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni will captain the squad as he will be largely out of action due to India’s busy Test schedule this year.
One of the surprise pick for the tour of Zimbabwe is Faiz Fazal.
The Vidarbha batsman Faiz Fazal is one of five uncapped players in India's weakened ODI and T20I squads for the tour of Zimbabwe in June.
The others are spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Jayant Yadav, and batsmen Karun Nair and Mandeep Singh.
KL Rahul is uncapped in the limited-overs formats.
However, the group that will fly out to the Caribbean for a four-Test series will have a man slightly more burdened with responsibility.
Ajinkya Rahane has been entrusted the responsibility of being the vice-captain under the leadership of the captain Virat Kohli.
Rookie Mumbai pacer Shardul Thakur was the lone new face in India’s team for the tour of West Indies.
Varun Aaron, who was part of the team during the series against South Africa, was dropped with a fit-again Mohammed Shami returning to the squad.
All-rounder Stuart Binny retained his place in the team announced by new BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke following a meeting of the selection committee in New Delhi.
The team, to be led by Virat Kohli, also had no place for veterans such as Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh.
Selection panel head Sandeep Patil told -
“
No one has been rested. No one wrote to BCCI or called us (to say) they were not available or they should be rested. It was the decision of the selection committee to pick a young side for Zimbabwe and another side for West Indies.
”
Squad for Zimbabwe: MS Dhoni (c/wk), KL Rahul, Faiz Fazal, Manish Pandey, Karun Nair, Ambati Rayudu, Rishi Dhawan, Axar Patel, Jayant Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jasprit Bumrah, Barinder Sran, Mandeep Singh, Kedar Jadhav (wk), Jaydev Unadkat, Yuzvendra Chahal
Squad for West Indies: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul (wk), Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajnikya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami, Bhuvneshwar Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Tahkur, Stuart Binny
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