The national selection committee of the Indian cricket team on Wednesday announced that Rohit Sharma will take over the One Day International (ODI) captaincy from Virat Kohli. Rohit Sharma will be the sole white-ball captain of the team till the 2023 ODI World Cup.
The selection committee headed by former Indian cricketer Chetan Sharma along with Debashish Mohanty and Abey Kuruvilla, also decided to remove Ajinkya Rahane from Test vice-captaincy, and in his stead, Rohit Sharma was installed as the new vice-captain for Tests.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) also announced the 18 member team for the upcoming three-match Test series against South Africa.
Notably, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, spinner Axar Patel, and opener Shubhmann Gill have been dropped due to various injuries. Meanwhile, Hanuma Vihari has been included in the main squad along with Ishant Sharma, despite the latter's poor form recently.
The Squad In Full: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma(VC), KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), R. Ashwin, Jayant Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Md. Siraj.
Reserves: Navdeep Saini, Saurabh Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Arzan Nagwaswalla.
The Test series is due to start from December 26 onwards. India will travel to South Africa despite the recent Covid-19 scare due to the newly discovered variant Omicron, according to the BCCI.
