Ajit Agarkar Drops Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma From T20I Series vs WI

In his first India squad announcement, Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar has continued the trend of not including both captain Rohit Sharma and senior batsman Virat Kohli in the T20I team. The senior Men’s Selection Committee on Wednesday announced the squad for the 5-match T20I series against West Indies on the all-format tour this month.

India’s tour of the West Indies and the USA comprises 2 Tests, 3 ODIs, and 5 T20Is. The squads for the Test and ODI have been announced earlier and, in what is Agarkar’s first Indian team selection meeting, the T20I squad was picked.

Hardik Pandya will captain India against West Indies with Suryakumar Yadav as his deputy. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tilak Varma, both of whom had terrific IPL 2023 seasons, got their maiden T20I squad call-ups, and so did pacer Mukesh Kumar. Ravi Bishnoi makes it back to India’s squad and will compete for a spot with Chahal and Kuldeep, both of whom are in the squad.

Ajit Agarkar Drops Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma From T20I Squad

The pace department includes youngsters Umran, Arshdeep, Avesh and Mukesh. Kishan and Samson are the two wicket-keepers in the squad. Axar Patel is also in the squad while Jadeja seems to be rested.

Both Rohit and Virat have not played a single T20I since last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia. It is not clear whether they have been dropped or rested given the focus is now on ODI cricket and Tests. Rohit is still the official captain of India, but Hardik has led the team in all T20Is this year.

India’s T20I squad: Ishan Kishan (wk), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Surya Kumar Yadav (VC), Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya (C), Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.