Suryakumar to lead India in T20I series against Australia

Suryakumar Yadav will lead India in the five-match T20I series against Australia, while Ruturaj Gaikwad has been given the vice-captaincy for the first three encounters. Shreyas Iyer will miss the first three games but will join the squad as vice-captain for the last two T20Is.

The first T20I will be played in Visakhapatnam on Thursday (November 23) before the action shifts to Thiruvananthapuram (November 26), Guwahati (November 28), Raipur (December 1) and Bengaluru (December 3).

This is the first time SKY will be captaining India. He has led Mumbai and India Under-23 in the past.

SKY is the only member in the T20I squad who featured in the grand finale of the 2023 ODI World Cup on Sunday (November 19), which Australia won by six wickets. The 33-year-old, who is the top-ranked T20I batter, didn't have a great WC. He could only score 106 runs in seven innings at an average of 17.66.

Apart from SKY, Ishan Kishan and Prasidh Krishna were also part of the World Cup squad. The latter didn't play a single game, while Kishan only featured in the first two encounters of the tournament.

There's no update on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's future in the T20I format. Meanwhile, Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav have been rested for the series. 

Hardik Pandya, who has led India in recent times and is likely to captain them in the next year's T20 World Cup, hasn't yet recovered from the ankle injury he sustained during the World Cup. The ace all-rounder is reportedly out for a couple of months. 

Most of the players who helped India win the Gold Medal in the Asian Games 2023 have been retained. Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan and Mukesh Kumar were all past of the Asian Games squad. Sanju Samson and Shahbaz Ahmed, who featured in the Ireland series, have been left out. 

However, Axar Patel is back. The left-arm spin-bowling all-rounder had to miss the World Cup due to a left quadriceps strain but seems to have now recovered and even played a couple of games for Gujarat in the last edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. 

Squad - Suryakumar Yadav (c), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vc - first three T20Is), Shreyas Iyer (last two T20Is), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.