Indian squad for New Zealand series announced - Rohit retained; Binny, Shardul dropped
The BCCI has announced the 15-man squad for the upcoming home series against the New Zealand Team. Despite all the speculations, Rohit Sharma has been retained in the squad, while Stuart Binny and Shardul Thakur, who were part of the squad which went on the tour of West Indies, have been dropped.
There was a lot of speculation about the sacking of Rohit Sharma's place in the squad. The Mumbai Indians' captain was expected to be dropped in favour of Gautam Gambhir, but the selectors chose otherwise. The Mumbaikar remains a part of the Test team despite his continuous failure in the format. Amit Mishra has also been retained in the Virat Kohli-led squad to complement Ravichandran Ashwin in the spin-friendly conditions of India.
However, the Sandeep Patil-led selection committee has left out the Mumbai pacer Shardul Thakur and the Karnataka all-rounder Stuart Binny, who were the parts of the team that played against West Indies.
The first Test of this 3-match series is scheduled to start on September 22 in Kanpur.
India Squad - Virat Kohli (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, R Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra, Mohammed Shami, Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul, Wriddhiman Saha, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, M Vijay, Umesh Yadav