Opener Shikhar Dhawan was on Thursday named as captain of the Indian team that will travel to Sri Lanka for a limited-overs tour next month as the BCCI announced a 20-man squad, packed with youngsters, including six uncapped players.
With the country’s top cricketers already in England for the World Test Championship final and the subsequent England series, the selection of a number of youngsters in the squad is on expected lines.
Many of them impressed in the suspended IPL and have been rewarded with their maiden India call-up. They included Devdutt Padikkal, pacer Chetan Sakaria, Nitish Rana, Krishnappa Gowtham, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Varun Chakravarthy.
Prithvi Shaw and Manish Pandey have made a comeback but Shreyas Iyer missing out on selection means he has not yet recovered from his shoulder injury.
Out of favour spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal are also part of the squad that also has Pandya brothers — Hardik and Krunal — apart from two wicket-keeper batsmen in young Ishan Kishan and Sanju Samson.
India are scheduled to clash with Sri Lanka in three One-day Internationals and as many Twenty20 matches on the tour that will begin on July 13 and conclude on July 25.
All the matches will be played at the R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in Colombo.
India’s squad: Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (Wicket-keeper), Sanju Samson (Wicket-keeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Vice-captain), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya
Net Bowlers: Ishan Porel, Sandeep Warrier, Arshdeep Singh, Sai Kishore, Simarjeet Singh.