Reports: Rohit Sharma to lead India in Nidahas Trophy

With the Indian teams’ Proteas assignment concluding today, there are already enough talks about the upcoming fixtures. The Indian team will be playing Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in a T20I tri-series starting March 6th. The Nidahas Trophy will be played to commemorate Sri Lanka’s 70th year of independence and will span out till the 18th of March. Each team will be playing four games in the league stage which will be followed by the finals.

Furthermore, this series might see some new faces making their debuts for India. The Indian cricket team has been playing continuous cricket over the last 18 months. With the IPL just after this series, players would want to have some rest ahead of the mega tournament. So, in order to manage the workload, the selectors might decide in favor of resting some senior cricketers.

Young talent might get a chance in the Nidahas Trophy

With the Indian cricket team playing non-stop cricket, it is important to manage the cricketer’s workload. This will ensure that the cricketers are injury free with some big assignments coming up after the IPL. With the kind of workload at the moment, many top cricketers are likely to be rested for the Nidahas Trophy. According to Times of India, skipper Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya won’t be part of the squad for the series.

While there are reports that former skipper MS Dhoni too will be rested, there are chances of him playing in the series as well given that he doesn’t play Tests anymore. However, the selectors will also want to try out the young talent available keeping the future prospects in mind.

In Kohli’s absence, Rohit Sharma will take up the captaincy responsibilities. He earlier captained the team in the Sri Lanka series and also has tons of IPL experience as the captain. The team had won two games under his leadership and lost one in the T20I series against Sri Lanka last year.

The BCCI and the key players have mutually agreed to give series a miss. “What is the point of sending these cricketers after such a hectic South African tour,” a team source said. The team for the tournament is likely to be picked later today. Among some of the youngsters, Delhi keeper-batsman Rishabh Pant could get the nod as chief selector MSK Prasad was seen having a chat with him during a Vijay Hazare match at the Palam cricket ground recently.