KL Rahul to take over captaincy mantle as India announce ODI squad for South Africa series.

Shubman Gill’s unfortunate neck injury and with Shreyas Iyer yet to recover from that horrific fall in the Australia ODI series means that both of them will not be available for the upcoming ODI series against South Africa. In their absence, KL Rahul, who has been the crux of the ODI middle order, has been handed over the captaincy reins . 

Interestingly, the last time Rahul captained India, was against South Africa as well in the ODI series of 2023, the first one after the heartbreak of the world cup final. Tilak Varma, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Ruturaj Gaikwad have been added to the squad, but Axar Patel and Mohammed Siraj miss the bus this time.

Gill, who is recovering in Mumbai post the injury in Kolkata needs more time clearly as the medical team still continues to assess as to how grave his injury is. Tilak Verma and surprisingly Ruturaj Gaikwad have been called up for the ODIs and one of them might even make a cut into the playing 11.

Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana and Prasidh Krishna are the pace trio with Nitish Kumar Reddy being the back up, but the absence of Jasprit Bumrah is just baffling to be honest. The veteran fast bowler, whose last ODI was the world cup final in 2023 has been given too much rest and has been left out of the ODI squad once again. Hardik Pandya too has been given a break as he is still recovering from his quadricep injury and the duo is expected to be back for the T20s. 

Ranchi, Raipur, and Vizag are the venues for the 3 odis that will kick off from 30th of November. The fans will have one more reason to rejoice as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will be back to play a home ODI after 9 long months.

India Squad for South Africa ODI series:

KL Rahul (c/wk), Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Tilak Varma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, Dhruv Jurel