India vs Australia, 2019 – The predicted squad of India for ODI series

There are just five ODIs left for India building up to the World Cup 2019. All these games will be played against Australia starting from 2 March 2019. Even though the team will play two warm-up games before the mega-event, there wouldn’t be much scope of experimentation then.

Hence, these five games will help clear a lot of clutter and are a golden opportunity for the players to claim their stake. The selectors will look forward to giving chances to a few players who have been in the mix but haven’t been picked. Moreover, there might be a few experimentations with the batting order as well.

Here is the predicted ODI squad for India

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan are surely the first-choice openers for India. But, they might not get to play all the five games keeping the workload in mind. The IPL 2019 is coming up and it will be quite exhaustive for both these men. Therefore, an opportunity could be provided to KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane for the final two or three games. The will help make a decision as to who will be picked as the back-up opener.

Virat Kohli, followed by Ambati Rayudu and MS Dhoni will occupy the next three positions in the batting line-up. After this is where a lot of decisions are to be made. The management should pick one between Kedar Jadhav and Dinesh Karthik as the finisher. Even Rishabh Pant might be tried at this position to see what he’s got on offer.

Hardik Pandya, Vijay Shankar and Ravindra Jadeja will be the three all-rounders. Since only two of them can be possibly picked for the World Cup, their performance will surely have a say. Both Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal will be picked for this series. The pace unit will comprise of Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Khaleel Ahmed. Shami might be rested for at least a part of this series.

India’s predicted 14-man ODI squad:

First choice: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Vijay Shankar, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Khaleel Ahmed.

Options for a part of the series (Last two/three ODIs): Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, Ajinkya Rahane, Mohammed Shami.

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