The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced India’s squad for the upcoming ODI series against South Africa. While return of Rishabh Pant seems to be the talking point, one has to wonder why some players have been left out of the squad.
Is Hardik Pandya still injured?
Unlike the Australia ODI series, Chairman of Selectors Ajit Agarkar didn’t come to address the press. The BCCI just announced the team. The biggest question was, is Hardik Pandya injured? The all-rounder had suffered a left quadriceps injury during the 2025 Asia Cup, which ruled him out of the Australia tour.
Hardik’s been at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru since. But he was expected to be fit for the India vs South Africa ODI series. That hasn’t happened. The BCCI hasn’t provided an update on Hardik, so we don’t know whether he’s injured or being rested just as a precaution.
Reports have mentioned that BCCI might look to use Hardik in just T20Is to keep him fit and fresh for the 2026 T20 World Cup. We’ll get to know about that when the squad for the T20I series against South Africa is announced.
Were Axar Patel & Mohammed Siraj rested or dropped?
Axar Patel and Mohammed Siraj’s omission seems rather odd. The former picked up 3 wickets and scored 75 runs, the second most after Rohit Sharma in Australia. Furthermore, Axar has become India’s spin-hitting specialist and now bats in the middle order. One reasoning behind his exclusion might be workload management since he’s an all-format player but BCCI hasn’t confirmed this.
As for Siraj, he had a poor Australia tour. Since he doesn’t play T20Is now, he isn’t an all-format player. However, he does feature in all Test matches India plays. Perhaps the medical team has told the selectors to rest Siraj, or the selectors themselves want to try Prasidh Krishan over him, considering the ODI World Cup is two years away.
Varun Chakaravarthy, out of schemes?
Varun Chakaravarthy was brought into India’s ODI team for the 2025 Champions Trophy. His selection was made due to the extremely spin-friendly pitch in Dubai. The move worked wonders. Varun ended up as India’s best spinner in the ICC tournament. But since then, he hasn’t been used.
Now again, the selectors haven’t turned to him. Given India might not need many spinners in South Africa, perhaps his services aren’t needed now, and he was brought in as a specialist for the UAE.
India ODI squad for South Africa series
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul (c & wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana
