Team India name squad for the last two ODIs

After a resounding win in the 3rd ODI at the Holkar Cricket Ground in Indore, Team India also took an unassailable 3-0 lead. Ahead of the series, the Indian selectors had named the squad only for the first three matches and thus announced the team for the last two matches soon after the conclusion of the Indore ODI.

Given the way the Men in Blue have performed thus far in the series, they didn’t need to make any changes except for one. Axar Patel who had suffered an ankle injury right ahead of the opening match in Chennai was replaced by the senior-pro Ravindra Jadeja who was otherwise rested for the series.

Now that Axar is fit to play again the selectors decided to bring him back in the unit and Jadeja will resume his rest. Though the left-arm spinner was with the team for the first three matches, he wasn’t included in the playing XI; the team making most of his availability used the best fielder in the world’s services in the final parts of the innings.

The Indian team is pretty content with the way their wrist spinners duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal has been bowling in the series thus far. They’ve shared 13 wickets amongst them in the three ODIs and choked the Australian batting in the middle overs.

Apart from the one change, there was no real need for the selectors to think about altering the squad since most of the players they’ve fielded thus far have performed on one occasion or the other and this is the core team they would want to back leading into the World Cup 2019 as well.

In the post-match presentation skipper Virat Kohli suggested that they might aspire to experiment now that the series is in the bag, but will not make a lot of changes since they want to convert the series win into a whitewash and the possible change could be in the pace bowling department where Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami could get a game.

Indian squad for the last two ODIs:

Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Axar Patel