Not Hardik Pandya, Varun Chakravarthy; Aakash Chopra Reckons Dropping Rahul Chahar For New Zealand Series is Unfair

Dubai: The Indian team for the upcoming home series versus New Zealand was announced on Tuesday. As expected, there were wholesale changes. While Rohit Sharma would be leading the side with Rahul Dravid as a coach, many top stars were not picked as they have been rested. A number of IPL stars have been rewarded, but ex-India opener Aakash Chopra reckons it is ‘unfair’ to drop Rahul Chahar.

Chopra questioned the selection panel about how can one decide how good a player is after just one game. On his YouTube channel, Chopra said: “Rahul Chahar only played a single game in the tournament and on the back of just that single game, how did you decide that he’s now not in the scheme of things. It was totally unfair.”

What makes things even more surprising is the fact that Chahar – who was in prime form in IPL – was preferred over the more experienced Yuzvendra Chahal for the T20 World Cup.

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It would be interesting to see how the combination of Rohit and Rahul fare. Their big target would be the ICC tournaments, something Ravi Shastri-Virat Kohli failed to achieve as captain and coach. Chahar replaced Varun Chakravarthy in India’s last league stage game against Namibia. However, the leg-spinner didn’t have the best of days and went wicketless.

India’s T20I squad for the New Zealand series: Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj