Mumbai: Indian cricket entered a new era as Virat Kohli was officially anointed Friday captain for all three formats as he took over leadership for the limited-overs series against England where veterans Yuvraj Singh and Ashish Nehra will make a comeback.
While Mahendra Singh Dhoni, after more than nine years at the helm, will play only as keeper-batsman, the national selection committee under MSK Prasad’s chairmanship named rookie Delhi keeper Rishabh Pant in the T20 squad giving an indication as to whom they consider Dhoni’s successor.
Among the notable omissions, Ajinkya Rahane has been dropped from the T20 team and Pant replaces him as a batsman who will also be Dhoni’s understudy in limited overs for the time being.
Yuvraj was in splendid form during the Ranji Trophy and scored 672 runs in five games at an average of 84 with a highest score of 260 against Baroda before he took a break due to his marriage.
“We should appreciate how Yuvraj has played. He did extremely well in domestic cricket, which has been appreciated,” Prasad told mediapersons about Yuvraj, who is making a comeback nine months after the World T20 last year.
The two teams saw veteran Nehra, who underwent surgery after sustaining an injury during IPL, make a comeback. His selection indicated the dearth of quality left-arm seamers in the horizon and no one can question Nehra’s craft with the white kookaburra. But if he plays, India will definitely have to hide him as a fielder. 
Top spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will be playing all six matches while a fit-again Shikhar Dhawan has been picked only for the ODIs. His replacement opener, who is likely to partner KL Rahul in T20s would be Punjab’s Mandeep Singh. Batsman Manish Pandey has made it to both the squads.
The Indian pace attack also remains the same in both the formats with Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah sharing the workload with seamer-all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
Prasad said all the selected players have undergone fitness tests at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore. “They have gone through an extensive fitness test in NCA and have qualified. And that is the reason we are making them play the practice game,” said Prasad about fitness of some players who were coming from injury lay-offs.
Press Trust of India
