Mumbai: Vice-captain Rohit Sharma and pacer Mohammed Shami will return to the Indian T20I squad for the five-match series against New Zealand, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced here on Sunday.
Virat Kohli will lead the Indian team in the 5 T20Is against the Black Caps. The tour will kick-off with the T20I series starting from January 24 in Auckland. India will also play 3 ODIs and 2 Tests against Kane Williamson's team.
Surprisingly, the five-man selection panel excluded Sanju Samson from the 16-member squad with Rishabh Pant being the lone wicketkeeper. Samson had played the third T20 against Sri Lanka in Pune, scoring six runs.
Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who made a successful comeback to the team after a long injury lay-off in the two T20Is against Sri Lanka this week, has been retained his place in T20I side along with opener Shikhar Dhawan.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya, who was expected to make a comeback in the T20I side, has not been selected after he failed the mandatory fitness test in Mumbai on Saturday and as a result, was pulled out of the India A squad for the New Zealand tour.
Tamil Nadu captain Vijay Shankar will be sent to New Zealand as a replacement for Pandya in the India A team. They will play two 50-over warm-up games, three List A games and two four-day 'Tests' against the New Zealand A team.
India T20I squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur, Manish Pandey, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Shami.(UNI)
