Mumbai: The promotion of Shubman Gill to the ODI captaincy, despite Rohit Sharma’s presence in the white-ball squad for the upcoming tour of Australia, was the biggest headline of Saturday’s selection committee meeting.
There was another big talking point, too, after chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced the ODI and T20I squads. Many were surprised to find the name of Ravindra Jadeja missing from the list.
One of Team India’s most consistent performers at home and abroad over a year and half, Jadeja had retired from T20 Internationals along with Rohit and Virat Kohli after India lifted the T20 World Cup at Bridgetown, Barbados in June 2024. However, the prolific allrounder was available for Tests and ODIs.
Even at 36, Jadeja has been outperforming his younger teammates, and was Player of the Match in India’s innings victory in the first Test against the West Indies, scoring an unbeaten century and bagging 4 wickets.
Even as he remains a major player in Test matches, is Jadeja’s ODI journey over?
Agarkar, however, said that Jadeja was not considered just for this particular series, and instead, Axar Patel was included as the primary spin-bowling allrounder.
According to Agarkar, the decision was based on team balance and conditions in Australia, rather than Jadeja being out of plans.
“We didn’t want two left-arm spinners in the squad. Jadeja remains very much in our thinking,” Agarkar explained.
Australian tracks traditionally assist pace and bounce more than spin. Both Jadeja and Axar in the squad would almost certainly have led to redundancy as both offer left-arm spin and lower-order batting. And with Kuldeep Yadav and Washington Sundar also included, there was no place for a fourth spinner.
INDIAN T20I SQUAD FOR AUSTRALIA
Suryakumar Yadav (Captain), Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill (Vice-captain), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Sanju Samson (WK), Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar.
INDIAN ODI SQUAD FOR AUSTRALIA
Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (Vice-Captain), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.
INDIAN IN AUSTRALIA
19th October: 1st ODI at Perth
23rd October: 2nd ODI at Adelaide
25th October: 3rd ODI at Sydney
29th October: 1st T20I at Canberra
31st October: 2nd T20I at Melbourne
2nd November: 3rd T20I at Hobart
6th November: 4th T20I at Gold Coast
8th November: 5th T20I at Brisbane