Just ahead of the series-opener against Sri Lanka in Dharamsala, India have received a major setback as Kedar Jadhav has been ruled out of the three-match series owing to a hamstring injury. The news was confirmed on Saturday (December 9). The Maharashtra star has been replaced by Tamil Nadu youngster Washington Sundar.
Stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma, on Saturday, stated that the 32-year old was doing rehabilitation work at Bangalore’s National Cricket Academy and was on monitored Saturday. He, however, failed to regain the full fitness.
Jadhav’s injury, nonetheless, can become a blessing in disguise for the team-management as they can try out his replacement Washington Sundar who has been impressing since hogging the limelight in this year’s Indian Premier League. Just a few days ago, he had received his maiden India call-up after being included in the T20I squad for the Sri Lanka series.
He was roped in by Rising Pune Supergiant as an injury replacement for Ravichandran Ashwin and repaid the faith by taking 11 wickets in nine games at an average of 12 and an impressive economy rate of only 5.54. He also impressed in this year’s Duleep Trophy and continued the same form in the ongoing Ranji Trophy, where he has scored 315 runs so including the 159-run knock against Tripura which was his maiden first-class ton in addition to picking up 12 wickets.
India, meanwhile, will be hoping to start the series on a winning note. With Virat Kohli rested, Rohit Sharma will lead the side, but the regular skipper’s absence is unlikely to cause much trouble for the high-flying Men in Blue against a team which has suffered three 5-0 whitewashes this year and have lost 21 of the 25 ODIs.
The ODI series will be followed by a three-match T20I series, starting December 20.
India squad for the three-match series:
Rohit Sharma(c), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul, Washington Sundar