India’s left-handed opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan has been ruled out of the three-match ODI series against West Indies. The 34-year-old has failed to recover from his knee injury which he sustained during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy against Maharashtra.
An in-form Mayank Agarwal will replace Dhawan in the Indian squad for the ODI leg of the ongoing home series.
India will play three ODIs against the Windies in Chennai (December 15), Visakhapatnam (December 18) and Cuttack (December 22).
Meanwhile, Agarwal is currently playing for Karnataka in the first round of Ranji Trophy against Tamil Nadu in Dindigul. He will miss at least the second round of Ranji Trophy matches starting on December 17.
It will be the second time this year Agarwal has been called as a replacement to join the Indian ODI squad. The first occurrence was during the World Cup when he replaced all-rounder Vijay Shankar, who had picked a toe injury.
Overall this year, in terms of numbers alone, Agarwal has been the best Indian batsman across formats in domestic and international cricket. With two double centuries and a century, he was the leading run-scorer in India’s Test home-season which featured five matches spread across two series involving South Africa (three Tests) and Bangladesh (two Tests).
India’s ODI squad to challenge West Indies:
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (wk), Shivam Dube, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
