Shami, Thakur picked for India’s ODIs in South Africa

Seamers Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Shami have been recalled to the Indian ODI squad that has been picked for the six-match ODI series in South Africa. Virat Kohli, who who was rested from the team’s most recent limited-overs assignment, against Sri Lanka, returns as captain of the 17-member touring party.

Kedar Jadhav, who suffered a hamstring injury in early December and has not played any cricket since, has also been picked. Making way for the returning first-choice players were fast bowler Siddharth Kaul, who remains uncapped, and 18-year old allrounder Washington Sundar. The ODI series begins with the first, of six games, in Durban on February 1.

Batsman KL Rahul and the senior spin pair of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja continue to miss out after the selectors felt Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel deserved an extended run following their good performances in the last few months.

MSK Prasad, the chairman of selectors, hastened to add it was not the end of the road for Ashwin and Jadeja, who last played an ODI in June-July. “We keep repeating this. We have been consistent with Chahal and Axar,” he told reporters in Mumbai. “With every game game they have been improving a lot. They should be given an extended run since they are doing very well. It is a unanimous decision. When we picked these three boys, we wanted to increase the bench strength in the spin department. Today, we have five-six quality spinners that are aiming for these slots.”

When asked about how Ashwin and Jadeja could thrust themselves back into contentions in limited-overs cricket, Prasad said: “We have enough domestic matches. They have played enough cricket and have enough number of wickets under the belt,” he said. “[The] only issue is we have tried these guys [the young spinners] and time and again they are winning games for you, so it makes sense to continue with these guys for some time.”

India ODI squad: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur.

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