The next South Africa tour’s white-ball leg has been postponed by Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Thus, KL Rahul will once again assume the captaincy for the ODI team, while Suryakumar Yadav will remain in charge of the T20I team.
After the current T20I series against Australia, Suryakumar will take over as captain since Hardik Pandya, who took the lead in the format following the T20 World Cup last year, is still sidelined due to an ankle injury he sustained during the most recent ODI World Cup.
After losing to England in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup in Adelaide last year, both Kohli and Rohit have not participated in any T20 Internationals.
Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, and Mohammed Siraj have all returned to the T20I team for the South Africa tour, having had a break from the ongoing T20I series against Australia, which began just four days after the World Cup final against the same opponents. Shivam Dube, Avesh Khan, Axar Patel, and Prasidh Krishna are the players who make room for them. Nonetheless, Prasidh plays for the Test team, while Axar and Avesh are members of the ODI team.
With the return of Jadeja, Chahar, Kuldeep, and Siraj, the bowling attack will have a lot more experience for the T20Is, even though the batting lineup is mostly same. This could be a sign of what the team management and selectors are considering for the T20 World Cup, which is less than six months away.
With only Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, and Kuldeep remaining from the ODI World Cup roster, the ODI team sees many more changes. While Rajat Patidar was called up after being included in the team earlier this year against New Zealand as a replacement for Iyer but not getting a game, Rinku Singh and B Sai Sudharsan received their first ODI call-ups. Along with Deepak Chahar, who recently returned to the T20I lineup for the Australia series, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Washington Sundar, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh, and Arshdeep Singh were all back in the ODI squad.
In the past week, Chahal has taken nine wickets for Haryana in four one-day matches for the Vijay Hazare Trophy, including a six-for against Uttarakhand. Samson, who is also playing for Kerala in the competition, has only scored 101 runs at an average of 25.25 in four innings, with just one fifty to his record.
The BCCI announcement did not reveal the vice-captain for the ODI team, in contrast to the Test and T20I selections.
Following Pandya’s injury, Rahul captained the Indian ODI team in nine matches, the first of which took place in South Africa early in 2022 and saw India destroyed 3-0. Rahul served as vice captain of the team throughout the World Cup. Later that year, Rahul led India to victory in a 3-0 series in Zimbabwe. In three previous One-Day Internationals (ODIs) that India won, one in Bangladesh in December of last year and two at home against Australia before to the most recent World Cup, he captained the team in Rohit’s absence.
Rahul has been an important middle-order batsman for India, primarily at No. 5, since making his ODI side comeback for the Asia Cup in September following a protracted injury absence. In 16 innings since his comeback, he has hit at 92.54 and averaged 75.70, with two hundreds and four half-centuries.
The day after the BCCI extended Rahul Dravid’s term as head coach, which had ended after India’s loss to Australia in the World Cup final in Ahmedabad, the team announced for the T20I, ODI, and Test tour to South Africa.
With the exception of IPL2024, India has just six more Twenty20 international matches left before the T20 World Cup in 2024, following the conclusion of their current five-match Twenty20 international series against Australia on December 3. On December 10, 12, and 14 they play three matches in South Africa; in January of the following year, they host three matches against Afghanistan.
The following is India’s T20I squad for South Africa: Ravindra Jadeja (vice-captain), Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar; Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan (wk), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ravindra Jadeja (vice-captain),
Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Deepak Chahar, KL Rahul (capt & wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad, B Sai Sudharsan, Tilak Varma, Rajat Patidar, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, and Sanju Samson (wk) are the members of India’s ODI team for South Africa.
