Ashish Nehra, Dinesh Karthik return for T20I series; Ajinkya Rahane dropped

Ashish Nehra makes a comeback into the Indian squad. (Source: AP)

Ashish Nehra and Dinesh Karthik have been included in the Indian squad that play Australia in a three-match T20I series. Also in the squad is Shikhar Dhawan, who could not be part of the ODI series as he had to tend to his ailing wife. Ajinkya Rahane has been dropped which means Dhawan will be opening alongwith Rohit Sharma.

Dhawan has been India’s first choice opener in ODI cricket but Rahane has had a successful ODI series in that position against Australia. In the five matches he played, Rahane failed to score in the first but went on to get half centuries in all the matches since. He ends the series as India’s second highest run scorer in the series.

Nehra’s last international appearance came in February. It was in a T20I against England but has since missed out on the West Indies and Sri Lanka T20Is. Shardul Thakur, who was in the squad for the ODIs has also not been included in the T20Is. Apart from these, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin remain absent from the squad. Jadeja was made part of the ODI squad when Axar Patel got injured but was dropped after the latter returned. Jadeja also did not play in any of the five ODIs.

Squad:  Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni(wk), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Axar Patel.