Dhawan, Karthik added to India’s T20 squad for upcoming series against Australia

India showcased their dominance over Australia with bat and ball to clinch the five-match one day series by 4-1. BCCI have announced the squad for the three T20 internationals to be played against Australia after the conclusion of the ODI series.

Opener Shikhar Dhawan and wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik have been selected for the Indian squad for the upcoming T20 series against Australia. Board of Control for Cricket in India named the 15-man squad for the upcoming T20 series against Australia on Sunday on 1^st October.

Dhawan is coming into the T20 series after being ruled out of the one-day series due to personal reasons. He did not take part in the five-match series in order to take care of his well that had been unwell. Ajinkya Rahane did tremendously as the opener in place of Dhawan. He has not much T20 cricket except India’s one-off T20 against West Indies. India has not made any big changes for the squad as it bear resemblance to the one selected for the series in the Caribbean.

Veteran left-arm pacer Ashish Nehra who did not play the one-off T20 games against West Indies and Sri Lanka. Nehra did play all the games against England in the T20 series played earlier this year. He has retained his place in the lineup as Mohammad Sami and Umesh Yadav are not the part of the squad despite regulars in the Test and ODI lineups for India.

Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina also are not the part of the squad as India selection committee have opted to look forward and bring in more youngsters to make sure they can prepare a good unit before the next big T20 event. Raina has been much better performer than Yuvraj and showed have been a chance but selection committee has shut the door on experienced players believing that the time is right to blood in youngsters in order to build bench strength for national side.

Apart from Yuvraj and Raina, Mandeep Singh, Rishabh Pant, Parvez Rasool and Amit Mishra also have been dropped from the T20 squad. All the players did feature in the home T20 series against England played at the beginning of this year. Dinesh Karthik has replaced Rishabh Pant in the squad as reserve keeper for the side and selection committee has opted to go with three spinners in Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel who have done well in the 50-over format for India.

Ace spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has also not been considered for the series while Ravendra Jadeja was also not picked and has been dropped the shorter formats of the game. Rohit Sharma will be vice-captain of the Indian side in the format with Virat Kohli as captain against three-match series against Australia. The first T20 international will be played on 7^th October in Ranchi followed by second game in Guwahati and final one at Hyderabad.

Indian Squad: Virat Kohli (captain ), Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Axar Patel