South Africa tour: India pick different captains for three formats

INDIAN cricket is going through a transition after the debacle in the final of the 50-over World Cup last month when they lost to Australia after winning all their matches till the title clash. The Asian powerhouse will next tour South Africa for matches across all three formats and three different captains have been picked for each, suggesting that India were looking forward to the era beyond Rohit Sharma's captaincy.

Suryakumar Yadav, who is leading India in a five-game T20 series against Australia at home currently, was picked as the skipper for the three-game series in the shortest format against the Proteas starting December 10. KL Rahul was picked as the captain for the three one-day internationals. Sharma will remain the captain for the two Test matches that will follow the white-ball formats.

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It was also confirmed that neither Sharma nor Virat Kohli, who scored 765 runs in the World Cup and bagged the player of the series award, will travel to South Africa for the white ball series as they requested for rest. Speedster Mohammed Shami, who bagged 24 wickets in the tournament in seven matches to finish at the top of the table, will be available for the Tests subject to fitness since he is currently undergoing treatment. He has been picked for the squad.

Ace all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who was ruled out with an ankle injury during the World Cup, was not picked as he was yet to recover.

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Here are the Indian squads for the three formats:

T20 squad: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Ravindra Jadeja, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan (wicket keeper), Jitesh Sharma (wicket keeper), Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Deepak Chahar.

One-day squad: KL Rahul (captain and wicket keeper), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sai Sudharsan, Tilak Varma, Rajat Patidar, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson (wicket keeper), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mukesh Kumar, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Deepak Chahar.

Test squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wicket keeper), KL Rahul (wicket keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Prasidh Krishna.