New Delhi: Ahead of the gruelling Test tour of South Africa, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday decided to rest captain Virat Kohli for the ODI series against Sri Lanka and named Rohit Sharma as the man to lead the team.
The three-match ODI series begins on December 10 in Dharamsala.
Before the start of the Test series, Kohli had told media that he will rest when he thinks his body needs it, and it seems the ideal time to allow Kohli some recovery time before flying out to South Africa, where India play three Tests, six ODIs and three T20Is from January 5 to February 24, 2018
"Definitely I do need rest. Why won't I need rest! When I think it's time my body should be rested, I`ll ask for it. I am not a robot, you can slice my skin and check, I bleed," Kohli had told reporters on the eve of India`s first Test against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens.
The ODI series against the Lankans will be followed by a three-match T20I series, but it's not yet clear whether Kohli will skip that as well.
India Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul
