Veteran all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin has congratulated Suryakumar Yadav after the star batter was named captain of India for the upcoming T20I series against Australia, starting on Thursday, November 23. Suryakumar will lead the team in the absence of regular captain Rohit Sharma, who has been rested India’s World Cup final defeat to Australia, and vice-captain Hardik Pandya, who is out of action due to an injury. The likes of Rohit, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, among others have all been rested for the five-match series.
Suryakumar will lead the team while Ruturaj Gaikwad will be his deputy for the first three T20Is. Shreyas Iyer will join the squad for the last two T20Is in Raipur and Bengaluru, respectively, and he will take over the role of vice-captain from Gaikwad.
Taking to Instagram, Ashwin wished Suryakumar, the no. 1 T20I batter, “best of luck” as gets set to lead India against Australia.
“Congrats @surya_14kumar. Go well buddy. Honour to lead the country,” Ashwin wrote on his Instagram story.
India have only named three players from the recent World Cup squad – Prasidh Krishna, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar himself.
Meanwhile, for Australia, Aaron Hardie has been added to the squad after veteran opener David Warner pulled out of the series.
India squad: Suryakumar Yadav (Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vice-captain), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar
Australia squad: Matthew Wade (Capt), Aaron Hardie, Jason Behrendorff, Sean Abbott, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa.
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