After being picked up in the Test squad, Indian skipper Virat Kohli has made it clear that young batting sensation Prithvi Shaw will be making his debut in the colored jersey as well in the upcoming three-match ODI series against New Zealand.
While speaking to the media before the ODI series, Kohli noted that Shaw was brought back into the team as a replacement for Shikhar Dhawan. Dhawan got injured during the third ODI against Australia and since then has not played a game for India.
The youngster from Mumbai will be opening the innings in the ODI series and KL Rahul will be batting in the middle-order to give the much-needed strength to the batting line-up. However, it would be interesting to see who is going to open the innings with Shaw in the 50-over format.
“In ODI cricket, Prithvi is definitely going to start, KL will play in the middle-order. We want him to get accustomed to keep and play in the middle,” Kohli said.
As for Rohit Sharma’s replacement, Mayank Agarwal has been called up into the team. Agarwal has not played any white-ball game for the Men in Blue. He could very well get a chance to play this time. Mayank can be one of the options to start the innings with Prithvi Shaw.
However, Kohli insisted that the team will badly miss the services of Rohit Sharma in the bilateral series.
“It is unfortunate that Rohit cannot be part of the ODI series, the impact he has had is there for everyone to see. We do not have any ODI tournaments to look up to, so it is ideal for him to get recovered,” Virat Kohli told the reporters before the first ODI.
The team is coming into this series after defeating Australia 2-1 in the three-match ODI series recently. The team had to fight hard for their victories during the series and Kohli wants the team to up their game for the series as New Zealand is a tough side to beat.
“In ODIs, we played a really hard-fought series against Australia, we lost the first match, but then came back to win the series 2-1. We will take a lot of confidence from that series, we will try to play positive cricket. We have to believe in our own plans, we know that New Zealand will not give up and we need to be vary of that,” Kohli concluded.
The first ODI will be played tomorrow at Seddon Park in Hamilton.
India Squad: Lokesh Rahul(w), Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli(c), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Shami, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Prithvi Shaw, Kuldeep Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Kedar Jadhav, and Shardul Thakur.
