KL Rahul to lead India vs Zimbabwe after being declared fit by medical team | Cricket News
Shikhar Dhawan, who was named the original captain, will now be Rahul’s vice-captain.
Rahul was recovering from sports hernia surgery and was supposed to play the West Indies series before testing positive for COVID-19.
Because he needed time to recover, he was initially not selected for the tour of Zimbabwe and was given time to fully fit before the important Asian Cup.
NEWS – KL Rahul is played; became the leader of Team India in Zimbabwe. More details here – https://t.co/GVOcksqKHS… https://t.co/prb4c0zoZN
– BCCI (@BCCI) 1660230993000
However, the medical team has now given a clear explanation after he cleared all the fitness parameters needed to be ready for selection.
Since he is the first choice vice captain in all formats down to the regular captain Rohit SharmaHis availability means that Dhawan has been relegated to the series’ vice-captain band.
Rahul’s addition increased the squad strength to 16 as the chosen ones did not replace any players. But Rahul’s presence means there’s virtually no chance for Ruturaj Gaikwad to get a game in the series.
There will be no Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Rishabh PantShreyas Iyer, Jasearch Bumrah or Mohammed Shami for this series because they have all been given a break.
However, Bumrah is recovering from a back injury and has been ruled out of the Asian Cup in the UAE, which starts on August 27.
From this squad, Rahul, Deepak Hooda are the only two players in the main squad.
Indian Squad for 3 ODIs: KL Rahul (Captain) Shikhar Dhawan (vice captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Ishan Kishan (goalkeeper), Sanju Samson (goalkeeper), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mohd Siraj, Deepak Chahar.