Jayant Yadav comes in for the unavailable Washington Sundar, who tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of the team’s departure to South Africa.
Experienced off-spinner Jayant Yadav has been named in the Indian ODI squad for the upcoming series against South Africa, with Washington Sundar unavailable after testing positive for Covid-19. Mohammed Siraj also suffered an injury to his hamstring, rendering him unavailable as well. Express pace bowler Navdeep Saini will take his RCB teammate’s place in the series set to begin on January 19 at Paarl.
Both Yadav and Saini are currently part of the Indian contingent that is currently in South Africa as part of the Test match side, although neither of them featured in the series. Yadav is very similar to Sundar in the sense that he can be used as a pinch-hitter in addition to bowling wicket-to-wicket off-spin.
With a wealth of experience on his side in the domestic circuits, Yadav has not played much at the international level, having only featured in the solitary ODI in his career to date, which was more than five years ago, posting figures of 1/8 in four overs as India trounced the Kiwis by 190 runs.
Siraj, on the other hand, was a key member of India’s test team, appearing in both the first and second Test. However, Siraj could bowl only about 16 overs in the entirety of the second Test match, suffering a minor hamstring injury, ruling him out for the third Test, and the ODI series.
His replacement, Navdeep Saini, has been in South Africa since November 2020, first travelling with the India ‘A’ squad for their four-day games against the Proteas before subsequently joining the senior Test side as a reserve player. Saini has had a poor ODI career in his limited experience, with an average in excess of 80 with the ball.
Washington Sundar, on the other hand, was at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, preparing for the ODI series with some of his teammates, including Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishan Kishan, and Venkatesh Iyer.
This group of players were to leave for South Africa on Wednesday, but Sundar’s positive test put a spanner in the works, forcing him to drop out. Sundar, who had suffered an injury prior to the IPL, had been out of the Indian squad for some time and was set to make his return in the limited-overs series against the Proteas. Meanwhile, the rest of the players departed for South Africa on Wednesday, as per schedule.
In the absence of new white-ball captain Rohit Sharma, his deputy KL Rahul will be leading the ODI side. India and South Africa are slated to play three ODI games between January 19 and 23.
