Kohli rested from Asia Cup, Rohit Sharma to lead

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Rohit Sharma will lead the India team during the Asia Cup with regular skipper Virat Kohli being rested from the 16-member squad for the upcoming tournament. Manish Pandey, Ambati Rayudu and Kedar Jadhav have been recalled to the squad while Suresh Raina, Umesh Yadav and Siddarth Kaul, who all featured in the squad for the England ODI series, are among the ones to miss out.

Read: Bangladesh squad for Asia Cup announced

Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan (vc), KL Rahul, Ambati Rayudu, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Khaleel Ahmed

Pandey was the highest run-scorer in the recent quadrangular series which featured ‘A’ teams from South Africa and Australia along with India A and India B. He led from the front in India B’s victorious campaign, scoring 306 runs in four games with one hundred and two fifties, and remained unbeaten in all the games.

Read: Asia Cup 2018 – Schedule released

The squad announced on Saturday (September 1) includes Khaleel Ahmed, the 20-year-old left-arm pacer from Rajasthan, who has earned his maiden India call-up while the wait continues for Mayank Agarwal despite his rich vein of form.