The Indian team for the Australia tour has been announced, with the squad set to compete in ODI and T20 series. While discussions have centered around Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s return to international cricket and Shubman Gill’s appointment as the new captain, the squad notably excludes three players who played crucial roles in India’s previous ODI event, the 2025 Champions Trophy. Prominent among these omissions are star all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and fast bowler Mohammed Shami, who will not be traveling to Australia this time.
On Saturday, October 4th, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s men’s selection committee revealed the team for the Australia tour. Much of the attention was on the ODI squad, with everyone anticipating the selection of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. However, the decision to hand the captaincy to Shubman Gill, replacing Rohit, who had led the team to victory in the Champions Trophy just seven months prior, raised eyebrows. While Rohit’s future was already under question, there was an expectation that the captain who had recently led the team to a championship would not be removed from the captaincy in the very next series.
Shami, who had a significant role in India’s Champions Trophy victory, has also been dropped from the Test squad. In the Champions Trophy, Shami took 3 wickets in the semi-final to help the team reach the final. He was the most successful bowler for India in the tournament, taking 9 wickets. However, he is not in the team this time. Shami was not selected for the Test series on the England tour due to fitness issues, but no such reason has been given for his non-selection this time.
In addition to Shami, spinner Varun Chakravarthy has also missed out on a place in the squad. Mystery spinner Varun also took 9 wickets in the Champions Trophy, the same as Shami, and was a major factor in the success of the Indian team. Varun took 2 wickets each in the semi-final and final with economical bowling. Despite this performance, his non-selection for the Australia tour was surprising. However, Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar did not provide any explanation for this in the press conference. Varun will, however, be part of the T20 series.
A significant decision was also the dropping of Ravindra Jadeja. Jadeja was also a part of the Indian team in the Champions Trophy. However, this tournament was not very special for him, and he could only take 5 wickets in the tournament, while he could not do anything special in batting and scored only 50 runs. Despite this, he has recently made a strong claim with his powerful batting in the Test format against England and now against the West Indies. However, Agarkar did provide a reason for his non-selection, saying that not many spinners were needed in Australia and that it was unnecessary to have three left-arm spinners (Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel) at the same time. Agarkar did make it clear that Jadeja is part of the ODI cricket plan.
ODI Squad for Australia Tour:
Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhrul Jurel, Yashasvi Jaiswal.
