Senior players would be rested for the upcoming triangular cricket series in Zimbabwe, the national selectors on Sunday announced while appointing Suresh Raina as captain of the 15-member squad.
The selection committee that met in Kodaikanal, rested senior players like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar and Harbhajan Singh and gave opportunity to a host of youngsters for their impressive performances in the domestic circuit.
Tamil Nadu player Murali Vijay will be making his one-day debut while R. Ashwin, Pankaj Singh, Umesh Yadav, Ashok Dinda, Vinay Kumar and Naman Ojha have been awarded for their good performance in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Virat Kohli is the vice-captain while Rohit Sharma and Pragyan Ojha make a comeback in the ODI side.
The series will feature Sri Lanka as the third team and will be played May 28-June 9 in Bulawayo and Harare. India will also play two Twenty20 internationals against Zimbabwe. Leg-spinner Piyush Chawla will feature only in the two Twenty20s.
Meanwhile, the selectors also announced an India A squad for the tri-series in England involving England Lions and West Indies with A. Cheteshwar Pujara as the captain and Wriddhiman Saha the vice-captain.
The India squad: Suresh Raina (captain), Virat Kohli (vice-captain), Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, R. Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar, Ashok Dinda, Pankaj Singh, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, Naman Ojha.
India A squad: Cheteshwar Pujara (captain), Wriddiman Saha (vice-captain and wicketkeeper), Abhinav Mukund, Shikar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Sourav Tiwary, Iqbal Abdulla, Sudeep Tyagi, Dhaval Kulkarni, Abhimanyu Mithun, Kedar Jadhav, Manoj Tiwary, Jaskaran Singh, Bipul Sharma, Jayadev Unadkad.
