The Indian selection committee led by Chief Selector MSK Prasad announced the squad for the last two ODIs against Australia. Ravindra Jadeja, who was called in the team as a replacement for injured Axar Patel, was dropped as Axar made his comeback in the team.
In fact, he travelled with the team to all the three venues and was part of the side unofficially. Team management was sweating on his availability and now, he has been deemed fit to participate in the rest of two ODIs.
Meanwhile, the ignorance of Jadeja has come as a big surprise as he was dropped from the ODI side in the name of being rested and only made a comeback after an injury to Axar. Even then though he did not play a single ODI as skipper Virat Kohli preferred wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal over him.
The sudden ignorance of him and R Ashwin from ODI team is an indication that selectors are looking forward in ODI cricket, due to the form of these two in this format of the game.
Opener Shikhar Dhawan, who had himself asked to be released for the first three ODIs, was not included in the side. The reason for him being left out is not clear as the board did not clear whether he himself asked for an extended break or did board drop him to give Ajinkya Rahane an extended run in the top order.
Indis is currently leading the series by a margin of 3-0. The home side defeated the Steven Smith led the team in the first ODI in Chennai by a margin of 26 runs on D/L method. In the second ODI at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the home side again defeated Australia and bundled them out on 202 to win the game by 50 runs. In the Indore ODI, Hardik Pandya shone for the team and steered the Men in Blue to an emphatic win, when India chased down the total of 294 with five wickets in hand.
The Virat Kohli led team will look to defeat Australia again so as continue their winning run, which started from Sri Lanka.
The remaining two ODIs will be played in Bengaluru and Nagpur.
Squad for last two ODIs- Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, KL Rahul, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami.