Iyer, Siraj earn call-up for New Zealand T20Is
Shreyas Iyer and Mohammed Siraj earned call-ups to India’s Twenty20 International squad for the three-match series against New Zealand. Both Iyer, the Mumbai batsman, and Siraj, the Hyderabad pacer, have been in good form in domestic cricket and been regulars in India A sides.
Kedar Jadhav was dropped from the T20I side that will play matches on November 1, 4 and 7 in New Delhi, Rajkot and Thiruvananthapuram respectively.
The opening T20I of the series will mark Ashish Nehra’s finale, the veteran left-arm pacer having announced his intention to retire from all cricket after that game. Nehra has thus been included only for the first game.
The selectors also announced a 16-man squad for the first two Tests of a three-match series against Sri Lanka that will follow after the New Zealand T20Is. M Vijay returns to take his place after having recovered from a wrist injury. Abhinav Mukund, who was part of the side that won 3-0 in Sri Lanka in July-August, misses out, as does Axar Patel. Axar had been flown in as cover for Ravindra Jadeja in the third Test, after the Saurashtra allrounder was suspended for one match for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct.
MSK Prasad, the chairman of the selection panel, said on Monday (October 23) that both Iyer and Siraj had been selected due to their consistent showing at the domestic and India A levels. Iyer hit 140 not out off 131 balls in the tri-series final against South Africa A, where Afghanistan A was the third team, in July. Against New Zealand A at home, he struck a century in the unofficial four-day ‘Test’ and had three scores of fifty-plus, including a century, in four one-dayers. Iyer has been Mumbai’s highest run-getter in the last three Ranji Trophy seasons.
Siraj made a splash last year with 41 wickets, the third highest tally in the season, which helped Hyderabad reach the quarterfinals of the Ranji Trophy.
“Shreyas Iyer has been prolific in all forms of the game, be it four-day format, be it one-dayers or T20s, be it IPL, he has been performing,” said Prasad. “We will stick with this policy that if we pick a player, we will give him an extended run, and we will continue with him for some point and nurture him and see that he goes on to become successful. So is the case with Siraj. He is doing well, he has been duly rewarded.”
On the retiring Nehra, Prasad said his panel had communicated to the 38-year-old that they were looking at him only till the New Zealand T20I series, after which the pacer decided to call it quits after the first match itself so that he could retire on his home ground at the Feroze Shah Kotla.
Prasad, though, remained non-committal on whether Nehra would be part of the XI in Delhi, deferring to the team management. “Whether he is going to play or not, it is clearly for the team management and the selector (on tour) to make a call, whoever it is. There is no assurance from our side that he's going to play or not. It will be decided by the team management.”
Sri Lanka will play a two-day warm-up fixture on November 11 and 12 against a Board President’s XI to be led by Naman Ojha before the first Test in Kolkata from November 16.
India T20I squad: Virat Kohli (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma (vice-capt), KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Ashish Nehra (only for first T20I).
India Test squad: Virat Kohli (capt), KL Rahul, M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-capt), Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma.
Board President’s XI: Naman Ojha (capt, wk), Sanju Samson, Jiwanjot Singh, B Sandeep, Tanmay Agarwal, Abhishek Gupta, Rohan Prem, Akash Bhandari, Jalaj Saxena, C V Milind, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Warrier, Ravi Kiran.