In the wake of the Indian cricket team’s triumphant Asia Cup campaign, the squad for the upcoming Australia ODI series was unveiled on Monday, featuring some intriguing selections. Notably, the return of Ravichandran Ashwin to the ODI fold after a hiatus dating back to January 2022 stirred much interest. However, the most striking decision by the team management was the resting of star trio Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Hardik Pandya for a series considered as the final dress rehearsal before the World Cup.

In a curious twist, this trio, along with Kuldeep Yadav, will be absent from the first two ODIs but is slated for a comeback in the third. During the squad announcement, BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar was queried by a journalist regarding the rationale behind resting these stalwarts before their “Bharat Darshan” (Indian Tour) at the World Cup. The reference to “Bharat Darshan” was made due to India’s extensive travel schedule, playing all their group stage matches in various cities.

Agarkar responded adeptly to the query, stating, “Rohit (Sharma) and Virat (Kohli) have been around forever, and obviously Hardik is an important player for us, we want to manage him.”

“Kuldeep is in great form. It also gives us a chance to look at some of the other guys. That’s the thing. Luckily, we got a fair amount of cricket in the Asia Cup.

“If not, we might have looked at it some other way. At some stage or the other, more than physical, guys sometimes need a mental break, which is not such a bad thing, leading up to the tournament (Cricket World Cup).

“But come the third game, everyone will be available to play. We will play our World Cup squad. It does give us a chance to play some other guys who have been sitting outside, and it has been a strong squad,” concluded BCCI Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar.

• KL Rahul (captain)
• Ravindra Jadeja (vice-captain)
• Ruturaj Gaikwad
• Shubman Gill
• Shreyas Iyer
• Suryakumar Yadav
• Tilak Varma
• Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper)
• Shardul Thakur
• Washington Sundar
• R Ashwin
• Jasprit Bumrah
• Mohd. Shami
• Mohd. Siraj
• Prasidh Krishna