India vs South Africa: Deepak Hooda, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar out; Umesh Yadav, Shreyas Iyer and Shahbaz Ahmed in

Mumbai: Shreyas Iyer has come into the India squad to face South Africa as a replacement for Deepak Hooda. Iyer is one of the reserves for the T20 World Cup in Australia. India are scheduled to play three T20Is against South Africa starting later tonight (28 September) in Thiruvananthapuram.

BCCI also confirmed that Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are out of the series. They will undergo “conditioning-related work” at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. Hooda, too, will report to the NCA for what the BCCI called “further management of his injury”.

Hooda is understood to have picked up a back injury at training during the recent T20I series against Australia. As a consequence, he was unavailable for the series decider in Hyderabad.

Seamer Arshdeep Singh, who was rested for the three T20Is against Australia, has joined his teammates in Thiruvananthapuram for the South Africa contest.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Shami is still in the process of recovering from COVID-19 illness and will miss a second-straight T20I series. He was earlier forced to miss the three matches against Australia.

Umesh Yadav, who was named Shami’s replacement for the Australia series, has come in once again for the T20Is against South Africa.

Uncapped left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed has been added to the squad too. He was earlier called up during the Zimbabwe ODIs in July in place of the injured Washington Sundar.

He comes in on the back of a short stint with India A against New Zealand A. Prior to that, he was part of East Zone’s Duleep Trophy squad, where he picked up a five-for and scored a half-century.

India squad for South Africa T20Is: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Harshal Patel, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Shahbaz Ahmed.

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