No Rest! Virat Kohli Himself Wanted To Play West Indies Series After World Cup Low: Report

After World Cup exit from the semi-final stage at the hands of New Zeland, many believed that Virat Kohli will skip the tour of West Indies to take rest. However, this wasn’t the case as the Indian skipper stood up after the defeat and himself asked to be the part of the team, a report in Mumbai Mirror suggests.

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“There were indeed suggestions that he should rest but he decided that his presence would be required for the side. The collective morale of the players was down and he did not want to stay away from the side at such a crucial juncture,” a source told Mumbai Mirror.

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Looking at his workload in the past few months, Kohli has been on the road since the month of March Kohli played full home series against Australia in March followed by IPL and World Cup 2019. In past year, he has taken enough rest and was expected to take a break from the limited-overs series but that wasn’t the case.

He will be leading India across formats on the tour of West Indies. Rohit Sharma will continue to be his deputy in white-ball cricket while Ajinkya Rahane will assist him in the longest format of the game.
Jasprit Bumrah was the only player to be rested.

He will miss the white-ball leg of the tour and will return for two Test matches. Hardik Pandya is unfit ane will miss the complete series.

In the absence of Bumrah, selectors handed maiden call-up to Delhi pacer Navdeep Saini. He was with the team during World Cup 2019 as well. Saini missed out on making it to the Test team due to the presence of regulars such as Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Bumrah and Mohammed Shami.

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Apart from Saini, Rahul Chahar was another new face in the T20I team. The Mumbai Indians star bowler has done well for India A and was rewarded with a call-up to the T20I squad. He is likely to make his debut in the T20I series as well in the absence of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav.

Shubman Gill was the one to miss out on selection. Not form, but no spot in the squad was the reason behind his non-inclusion as India called back Shreyas Iyer an Manish Pandey, that left no place for Gill.

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