The Indian team for the six-match one-day series in South Africa has been picked by the selectors on Saturday.
After the completion of the three-match Test series against South Africa, India will play ODIs at Kingsmead, Durban (Feb.1,day/night), at SuperSport Park, Centurion (Feb.4), at Newlands, Cape Town (Feb.7, day/night), at New Wanderers, Johannesburg (Feb.10. day/night), at St. George’s Park, Port Elizabeth (Feb.13, day/night) and at SuperSport Park, Centurion (Feb.16, day/night).
After skipping the limited-overs series against Sri Lanka, Virat Kohli returns to the side. Vice-captain Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane will be the three openers while batsmen Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey and Dinesh Karthik retain their places in the squad.
In spite of doing well in the T20I series against Sri Lanka, KL Rahul doesn’t find a place in the 17-member squad. Also, there is no place for both Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh as the duo have been struggling to score in the domestic circuit.
Spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja continue to remain on the sidelines as the wrist spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, along with all-rounder Axar Patel retain their places in the side.
Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammad Shami and Shardul Thakur complete the pace attack with Hardik Pandya as the back-up.
Meanwhile, India has played 28 ODIs against South Africa in South Africa, won five and lost 21. Two matches (Kingsmead, February 1997 and Centurion, December 2013) ended in no result.
India squad:
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammad Shami and Kedar Jadhav.
