Shikhar Dhawan has been ruled out of the upcoming 3-match series against West Indies following an injury in his left knee. Sanju Samson has been named the replacement for Dhawan for the series starting from December 6.
Shikhar Dhawan suffered from an injury in his left knee during a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 game for Delhi earlier this month. He had to visit the hospital to treat the injury and is currently recovering from the same. The BCCI Medical Team assessed his injury on Tuesday and gave their feedback. A BCCI media released on Wednesday read, “Dhawan suffered a deep cut on his left knee during a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy game against Maharashtra in Surat. The BCCI Medical Team assessed him on Tuesday to review the healing of his wound. The BCCI Medical Team has suggested that Dhawan needs some more time for his stitches to come off and his wound to heal completely”.
Sanju Samson, the wicketkeeper-batsman is the new man included to the squad replace Dhawan for the T20I series. Samson who a call up for the series against Bangladesh did not feature in any playing XI. Despite not getting any chance to prove himself he was not chosen for the series against West Indies earlier. The reports suggest that the selection committee wanted Sanju Samson as a back-up middle-order batsman for the Bangladesh series in the absence of Virat Kohli. The decision of keeping him out of the squad for the upcoming Windies series was hugely criticised.
India squad for West Indies T20Is: Virat Kohli (C), Rohit Sharma (VC), KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant (WK), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sanju Samson