CHENNAI: AFTER weeks of speculation over his future, former captain Rohit Sharma has been named in the squad for the West Indies ODIs to be played from September 27.
Apart from Rohit, the ODI squad will see the return of Mohammed Siraj, who last played in the 50-over format against New Zealand in January. Similarly, the series will also see Ravindra Jadeja back in action with both Washington Sundar and Axar Patel part of the T20I team in Asian Games. Same will be the case with Shreyas Iyer. Staying in the batting unit, Ruturaj Gaikwad is back in the ODI team and is likely to bat at No 4.
The selectors have not taken a call on Hardik Pandya yet as it remains to be seen if and how he goes in the A series against Australia in Puducherry later this month. Meanwhile, Nitish K Reddy, who made a comeback against Afghanistan, will play the West Indies ODIs. He was withdrawn from the Asian Games squad.
In the wicket-keeping unit, Dhruv Jurel has replaced Rishabh Pant but the former will lead the Rest of India team in the Irani Trophy match against Jammu and Kashmir. Meanwhile, Naman Dhir earned his maiden ODI call-up as Vipraj Nigam replaced the injured Varun Chakaravarthy in the Asian Games squad.
The biggest talking point, however, is Rohit retaining his spot in the squad. Before the last ODI against England, speculations were rife that the Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee expected to move on from the 39-year-old. Rohit scored a century in the match and in the days that followed, BCCI secretary Devajit Sakia threw his weight behind the senior.
Even after the recent review meeting in Mumbai, in which Agarkar's absence raised eyebrows, Saikia said Rohit has been playing well. "He is playing superbly in all matches. So what more do you want? In the last match he scored 138 runs. So why is there a speculation? I do not want to give some fodder for the speculations," Saikia had said.
The 39-year-old who has expressed his interest to play the 2027 ODI World Cup recently left the question open-ended at an event. When asked about his participation by an audience at the Global Fintech Fest, Rohit said: "October 2027 is far away, we will see about it then." By the time the quadrennial tournament comes along, Rohit will be over 40.
Agarkar's future in question
This came at a time when Agarkar, and head coach Gautam Gambhir, had remained non-committal about Rohit playing the ODI World Cup next year. And over the last few weeks and months it led to murmurs over friction between the chief selector, whose extension is still not confirmed, and the BCCI. Agarkar did not join the review meeting, which was called on short notice. Now, it remains to be seen whether this would be Agarkar's last meeting as chief selector with his contract getting over this month.
ODI team: Gill [C], Rohit, Kohli, Ruturaj, Rahul [VC, WK], Jurel [WK], Nitish, Jadeja, Kuldeep, Prasidh, Gurnoor, Siraj, Nabi, Jaiswal, Dhir.
T20I Team: Iyer [C], Abhishek, Vaibhav, Kishan [WK], Samson [WK], Tilak [VC], Dube, Kuldeep, Axar, Washington, Ravi, Nitish, Arshdeep, Prince, Mayank.
Rest of India squad: Rishabh [C, WK], Sanat, Shikhar, Sudip, Sarfaraz [VC], Smaran, Suthar, Jain, Akash Deep*, Mukesh, Choudhary, Juyal [WK], Aryan, Anukul, Ayush.
* Subject to fitness