BCCI announces squad for West Indies tour, Virat Kohli to lead, Bumrah in only for Tests

The Board of Cricket Council of India (BCCI) announced the squad for India’s tour of West Indies on Sunday after a high-level meet that was attended by Chief Selector MSK Prasad and skipper Virat Kohli. It is to be noted that the Indian cricket team will start their West Indies tour from August 3 and will play three T20s, as many ODIs and two Test matches. Earlier, it was speculated that Virat Kohli will not be part of the team, but MSK Prasad clarified saying that he will continue to lead the side in all the three formats against West Indies.

While Jasprit Bumrah will only be available for the Tests, all-rounder Hardik Pandya has been rested for the entire tournament. In the meantime, Shikhar Dhawan, who has recovered completely from injury returns to the team. Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Washington Sundar and Navdeep Saini are the new faces that have been included in the limited-over format.

Here’s the squad for India’s tour of West Indies:

India’s squad for 3 T20Is:

Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (WK), Krunal Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Rahul Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar and Navdeep Saini.

India’s squad for 3 ODIs:

Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kedar Jadhav, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed and Navdeep Saini.  

India’s squad for 2 Tests:

Virat Kohli (Captain), Ajinkya Rahane (VC), Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, C Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (WK) Wriddhiman Saha (WK), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Umesh Yadav.

It is worth mentioning here that all eyes were on MS Dhoni as there were reports that he might announce his retirement from cricket. However, Dhoni had already taken himself out of the equation after he informed the BCCI that he is going to take a two-month sabbatical from cricket to serve his paramilitary regiment.