Ravindra Jadeja was left out of India's squad for the white-ball series against Australia despite the all-rounder being a mainstay in the ODI and Test setups.
India announced their squads for the three-match ODI and five-match T20I series against Australia, which kicks off with the 50-over games from October 19. Shubman Gill has been named India's new ODI skipper, replacing Champions Trophy-winning captain Rohit Sharma, who is in the squad alongside Virat Kohli as they make their returns to the Indian setup.
While these two veterans are back in the Indian squad, one glaring absence is that of Jadeja, the 36-year-old all-rounder who has been a mainstay in the longer format teams. India picked three spinners in Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Washington Sundar for the Australia ODIs but did not include Jadeja.
Why is Jadeja not picked in the squad?
Meanwhile, India's chief selector Ajit Agarkar addressed the media shortly after the ODI and T20I squads were announced. Agarkar confirmed that Jadeja is very much in plans for India, but they could have picked only one left-arm spinner, and that was Axar.
"Right now, we could only take one left-arm spinner for the Australia series. It wasn’t possible to fit in two. Ravindra Jadeja is absolutely in our plans — everyone knows how good he is and what he offers as an all-rounder and a fielder," Agarkar stated in the press conference.
"But for this short series, we wanted to maintain balance with Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav in the squad. This is a short series — you can’t fit everyone in. Jadeja’s quality is unquestioned. He’s very much part of our plans going forward," he added.
India's squad for the Australia ODI series:
Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (VC), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.
India will be touring Australia for eight white-ball games with three ODIs and five T20Is. The ODIs will be played first from October 19, followed by the next two games on October 23 and 25. The T20I series will kick off on October 29 and will last till November 8. The T20I squad is also likely to be announced alongside the ODI side.
