Mumbai: The wheel has turned a full circle for Ajinkya Rahane.
Having made a comeback to the Indian team after 17 months and a month after being dropped from BCCI’s central contracts for the World Test Championship (WTC) final, Rahane has now been reinstated as vice-captain for the five-day format.
In a surprise move, BCCI’s selection committee named Rahane as Rohit Sharma’s deputy for next month’s two-Test series against the West Indies in the Caribbean. The middle-order batter served as vice-captain of India’s Test team under Virat Kohli, but lost that role to Rohit ahead of the South Africa tour in December 2021.
Rahane forced his way back to the national team last month after an impressive show for Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2023.
And though India were outplayed by Australia in the WTC final and lost by 209 runs at the Oval earlier this month, Rahane stood tall in both innings with scores of 89 and 46 to emerge as the team’s top scorer.
Another veteran Cheteshwar Pujara, who made 14 and 27 in the WTC final, did not make the cut for the West Indies tour where India will play Test matches in Dominica (July 12 to 16) and Port of Spain (July 20 to 24).
For the important series, which marks India’s first assignment in the 2023-2025 World Test cycle, the uncapped duo of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Yashasvi Jaiswal have been picked. The selectors are clearly looking to gradually bring youngsters into the Indian team.
TEAM INDIA SQUADS FOR WEST INDIES TOUR
Tests — Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini.
ODIs — Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Surya Kumar Yadav, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (vice-captain), Shardul Thakur, R Jadeja, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohd. Siraj, Umran Malik, Mukesh Kumar.
