INDIAN CRICKET NEWS: Dhawan & Karthik returns for the T20s Against Australia

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Rohit Sharma, who was recently handed the vice-captaincy of the ODI outfit, will continue to be Virat Kohli’s deputy. The first T20I will be played in Ranchi on October 7 with the next two scheduled to be held in Guwahati (October 10) and Hyderabad (October 13).

Dashing India opener Shikhar Dhawan has made a comeback into the 15-man squad for the upcoming 3-match T20I series against Australia, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Sunday.

Dhawan opted out of the recently-concluded ODI series against the same opposition to look after his ailing wife. Ajinkya Rahane took his place in the line-up and slammed four consecutive fifties, while opening the batting with Rohit Sharma.

However, Rahane has now been left out of the squad to make way for the southpaw. Moreover, Rahane hasn’t been part of the line-up in the shortest format of the game for a while now as he didn’t feature in the one-off T20I against Sri Lanka last month as well.

Also included in the squad are Ashish Nehra, who is seen as a T20 specialist and Dinesh Karthik — who did very well during India’s tour of West Indies, right after the Champions Trophy 2017.

India are scheduled to play three T20Is against Australia, whom they thumped 4-1 in the five match ODI series and go top of the ICC rankings. The Men In Blue would also like to improve their T20Is rankings as currently they occupy the fifth spot on the table.

Squad: Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Axar Patel