India have dropped senior batsman Yuvraj Singh and rested spinners R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja for the five-ODI, one-off T20I series against Sri Lanka. the selectors have included Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav in the Virat Kohli-led 15-member squad.
Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma, also the vice-captain, are the three openers while Manish Pandey, making a return to the squad after recovering from injury and scoring runs for the A team in South Africa, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav are the middle-order batsmen, Hardik Pandya the seam bowling all-rounder. Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami, who are part of the Test set-up in the ongoing series, weren’t included for the ODIs.
Yuvraj exclusion was inevitable. While his place in the side has been questioned by many for the longest time now, he had the backing of skipper Kohli despite a lean run with the bat and below-par fielding.
But it seems selectors have finally decided to move on. In his last seven ODI appearances, Yuvraj has managed only 162 runs and was given bowling only once. His sloppy movement in the field has also been a problem.
Squad: Virat Kohli (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Ajinkya Rahane, Kedar Jadhav, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur
