Rahane to lead India in Afghan Test, dropped from limited overs squads(Lead)

Ajinkya Rahane was on Tuesday expectedly named skipper of the Indian team for the historic one-off Test match against Afghanistan here next month but the Mumbai batsman was surprisingly omitted from the limited overs squads for the subsequent tours of Ireland and England.

The BCCI selectors met here to pick six squads on Tuesday, including two T20I squads to face Ireland and England and ODI outfit to face England, the latter featuring Ambati Rayudu who was recalled as replacement for the injured Kedar Jadhav and Lokesh Rahul who took Manish Pandey's place.

Virat Kohli leads the T20I and ODI squads, but having opted to play county cricket for the month of June with Surrey, Rahane will lead India in Afghanistan's debut Test at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here from June 14-18.

The Test side will see the comeback of two of this Indian Premier League's impressive performers in Lokesh Rahul and Karun Nair -- both of whom are part of the Kings XI Punjab outfit.

Nair made headlines in late 2016 when he became the second Indian batsman to score 300 in a Test, doing so with a monumental 303 not out against England when filling in for the injured Rahane.

He was dropped, however, after managing 54 runs in three innings against Australia. A strong domestic season has propelled Nair back into the Test squad as a batting replacement option in Kohli's absence.

Mumbai paceman Shardul Thakur, 26, has replaced Jasprit Bumrah in the Test squad. He has been part of previous Test squads but has yet to debut. His international experience encompasses seven T20Is and three ODIs.

Test regulars Cheteshwar Pujara and Ishant Sharma, who have both featured in county cricket over the past few weeks, will return to India to play against Afghanistan as their counties -- Yorkshire and Sussex -- are not playing first-class matches between May 14 and June 30.

Meanwhile, the ODI squad comprises first-choice picks, with the inclusion of Rayudu coming after Jadhav was ruled out of the IPL with injury.

Rayudu is the leading run-getter in the ongoing IPL 2018 with 423 from 10 innings at a strike-rate of 151.61 for Chennai Super Kings. Rayudu, 32, last played an ODI in June 2016.

Rahul has also been recalled to the 50-overs side, having last played an ODI in August 2017. Opening the innings, Rahul has racked up 376 runs in nine innings for KXIP at a strike-rate of 162.77.

From India's previous T20I squad, which contested and won the Nidahas tri-series Trophy in Sri Lanka, Deepak Hooda, Mohammed Siraj, Axar Patel, Vijay Shankar and Jaydev Unadkat have been replaced with Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Siddarth Kaul and Umesh Yadav.

Kaul has taken 13 wickets for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, which places him at fourth place on the bowling charts.

The BCCI also named the India A squads for the four-day matches and the one-day tri-series in England, under Shreyas Iyer and Karun Nair respectively.

Squads:

Test squad for one-off Test vs Afghanistan:

Ajinkya Rahane (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma, Shardul Thakur.

Squad for T20I series vs Ireland & England:

Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Lokesh Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(WK), Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Siddharth Kaul, Umesh Yadav.

Squad for ODI series vs England:

Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Lokesh Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Ambati Rayudu, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (WK), Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Siddharth Kaul, Umesh Yadav.

India A team for One-Day Tri-series:

Shreyas Iyer (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, Shubhman Gill, Hanuma Vihari, Sanju Samson, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (WK), Vijay Shankar, K. Gowtham, Axar Patel, Krunal Pandya, Prasidh Krishna, Deepak Chahar, Khaleel Ahmed, Shardul Thakur.

India 'A' team for four-dayers:

Karun Nair (Captain), R. Samarth, Mayank Agarwal, A.R. Easwaran, Prithvi Shaw, Hanuma Vihari, Ankit Bawne, Vijay Shankar, KS Bharat (WK), Jayant Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem, Ankit Rajpoot, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Rajneesh Gurbani.

--IANS

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