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Mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy has been ruled out of the upcoming T20I series against Australia owing to a shoulder injury. The All India Selection Committee on Monday named T Natarajan as his replacement.
Chakravarthy was added to India’s T20I squad for the tour of Australia by virtue of his impressive IPL 2020 campaign where he finished as the leading wicket-taker for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) – 17 wickets in 13 games at an average 20.94.
Natarajan too impressed the selectors with his superb fast bowling for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) during this season of IPL. He picked 16 wickets in 16 matches at 31.50. His ability to deliver yorkers at will grabbed the eyeballs of fans and experts. Natarajan bowled 64 yorkers in IPL 2020, 39 more than Jason Holder, who is at the second-place.
Meanwhile, Sanju Samson has been picked for the ODI series as the second wicketkeeper.
In another development, captain Virat Kohli has been granted paternity leave and will return from Australia after the first game of the four-match Test series, whereas Rohit Sharma has been added to the Test squad.
Here are India’s revised squads:
T20I squad: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul (vc, wk), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, T Natarajan
ODI squad: Virat Kohli (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (vc, wk), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur, Sanju Samson (wk).
