Rohit, Kohli rested, Shikhar to lead as India announce squad for Zimbabwe tour

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been rested for India's tour of Zimbabwe and Shikhar Dhawan has been named India's stand-in captain.

India are set to travel to Zimbabwe for a three-match ODI series, which is a part of the World Cup Super League. The matches will be played between Aug. 18 and 22 at Harare Sports Club, Harare.

Deepak Chahar returned to the Indian squad after being out of action for nearly six months due to a back injury. He last played at any representative level in the T20I series at home against West Indies back in February. He picked up the back injury while undergoing rehab at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru, where he was recovering from the quadricep tear he was diagnosed with during the West Indies games.

That also saw him miss the Indian Premier League (IPL), where he was the biggest buy of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the IPL 2022 mega auction 2022.

Ahead of the three ODIs in Zimbabwe, India also handed a maiden ODI call-up to Rahul Tripathi, while Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav were also included in India's 15-man squad.

Kuldeep, who is currently playing the five-match T20I series in West Indies, recently returned after recovering from a hairline fracture in his right wrist, which had forced him out of the South Africa T20Is at home as well as the white-ball tours of Ireland and England. The chinaman bowler had last played in the IPL 2022 for Delhi Capitals, where he picked up 21 wickets in 14 matches.

KL Rahul: Covid infection has pushed my recovery by a couple of weeks

Meanwhile, KL Rahul has not yet recovered fully, after first undergoing successful surgery for a sports hernia, and then contracting the covid-19. Rahul took to social media to say that his post-surgery recovery had put him on course for the limited-overs series in West Indies, but the Covid infection has pushed his progress to full fitness back by a couple of weeks.

"I wanted to clarify a couple of things about my health and fitness. My surgery in June was successful, and I had begun training with the hope of returning to national duty for the team's tour of the West Indies.

Unfortunately, as I was nearing a return to full fitness, I tested positive for Covid-19. This naturally pushes things back by a couple of weeks, but I am to recover as quickly as possible, and be available for selection as soon as I can. To represent the national team is the highest honour, and I cannot wait to get out there back in blue," Rahul wrote on Twitter.

India also left out the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, and Yuzvendra Chahal, who were all part of the ODI series against the West Indies.

While there is no official statements behind the selections or non-selections, it is understood that the players are being rotated as part of the BCCI's policy keeping in mind the packed international calendar. India are currently playing a white-ball series in the West Indies, and the Asia Cup will start on August 27 in the UAE, just five days after the last ODI in Zimbabwe.

India's 15-man squad: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Ishan Kishan (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mohd Siraj, Deepak Chahar.