Rohit and Dhawan are Virat’s good friends:
Gambhir’s face-off with Virat may be a reason. But both Indian ODI openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma are good friends of Virat and on many occasions on the eve of match Virat cleared that Dhawan can win India a game in session and Sharma with a flurry of strokes in his kitty is a useful batsman for India even in the 5-day format. So Gambhir was not selected for the series.
Meanwhile, BCCI’s selection process is also not transparent, Chairman of selectors Sandeep Patil said that India needs to give Rohit a fair amount of games, whatever he meant by that.
Having said al these, India plays a whopping 13 Test matches over next 5 to 6 months, so Gambhir mustn’t lose the heart and continue scoring runs. Who knows what’s in store for the angry young, not so actually, man of Indian cricket?