CHENNAI: Rohit Sharma will not fly to Australia as the selectors left him out of all three India squads because of injury.
After injuring his hamstring last week, Rohit has missed two matches for Mumbai Indians and indications are he would be available for the play-offs as he continues to be monitored by physio Nitin Patel, who is also in charge of the national side.
However, the decision to leave him out of the Australian tour — which starts after a month — even before his franchise has ruled him out of the IPL campaign raises eyebrows, as all centrally contracted injured players are supposed to undergo rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA).
Interestingly, Rohit batted at the Mumbai Indians nets on Monday. It is understood that he will need BCCI's clearance if Mumbai are to field him in the IPL.
Apart from monitoring Rohit's progress, the BCCI's medical team will also keep a tab on Ishant Sharma, who suffered a left internal oblique muscle tear and is currently at NCA.
While Ishant is expected to be fit by the time the Test series begins on December 17, the selectors haven't risked him. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini are the pacers for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with Mohammed Siraj, who got a maiden call-up to the Test side.
KL Rahul has also returned to the Test squad. The biggest surprises came in the limited-over formats, where mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy received a first call-up to the national T20 side on the back of a good show in IPL, where he was selected ahead of Kuldeep Yadav by Kolkata Knight Riders. Mayank Agarwal, who too is having a good season for Kings XI Punjab, finds a place in all three squads.
The selection panel led by Sunil Joshi did not name Rishabh Pant in the limited-over squads. While Sanju Samson has been named for T20Is, Rahul is the lone designated keeper for ODIs. Pant will have Wriddhiman Saha for competition in the Tests.
India's touring party has 31 players including Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kartik Tyagi, Ishan Porel and T Natarajan, who will travel with the contingent as net bowlers. All those not part of the Test squad will return after the warm-up games before the Test series.
The squads:
T20I squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul (vice-captain and wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd.Shami, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Varun Chakravarthy
ODI squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (vice-captain & wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd.Shami, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur
Test squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd.Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R.Ashwin, Mohd.Siraj.