Karthik replaces Rahul for New Zealand ODIs

Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik and Shardul Thakur returned to India’s 15-man One-Day International squad, announced on Saturday (October 14), for the three-match series against New Zealand later this month.

Making way for the three were KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav, while there was still no room for R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in the Indian 50-over side.

Rahul, in excellent form in India’s recent Test matches, has struggled in the ODI format in the few matches he has played this year. Against England in January, he played three games as opener, and had a top score of 11, while against Sri Lanka in August, when he was pushed down the batting order, his best effort was 17 in three innings.

Dhawan was always expected to slot right back into the squad after having missed the ODIs against Australia – which India won 4-1 – because of his wife’s surgery. He came back to the side for the three-match Twenty20 International series, which ended 1-1 after the final fixture in Hyderabad was washed out on Friday.

Karthik, meanwhile, was in good run-scoring form in the Duleep Trophy 2017-18 in September and during the limited-overs tour of the Caribbean earlier this year, and has been called up as an additional middle-order option. The others there are Virat Kohli, the captain, Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya and MS Dhoni, while Ajinkya Rahane remains in the mix as the third opener along with Dhawan and Rohit Sharma.

Shami, who featured in just one ODI in the Australia series – in Bangalore, when he went for 62 runs in ten wicketless overs as India lost by 21 runs – and Umesh, who gave a much better account of himself in the same Bangalore ODI with returns of 4 for 71, were largely surplus to India’s requirements at home in ODIs.

With Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah the top frontline pace choices and Pandya around as the fast-bowling allrounder, Thakur has been drafted in as back up after turning out in two games during the tour of Sri Lanka where he returned 1 for 26 in seven overs and none for 48 in six respectively.

Ashwin and Jadeja, India’s best spin choices in Test cricket and regulars in the limited-overs sides till recently, have been out of the frame in ODIs and T20Is since the tour of Sri Lanka, when Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal were picked as the main options. With the three spinners doing well since then, Ashwin and Jadeja continued to be left out in the cold.

Squad: Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma (vice-capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur.