Hardik Pandya was selected captain of the Men in Blue team for cricket's shortest format, hence Rohit Sharma was unable to play in the recently finished T20I series against Sri Lanka. Rohit Sharma, the team's captain, will make his ODI comeback against Sri Lanka after missing the second ODI against Bangladesh due to a finger injury. The fact that Hardik captained India's T20I team against Sri Lanka led to rumours that Rohit would only captain the team in ODIs and Tests during what seemed to be a pivotal time for India. Before the ODI series, though, came out to address speculation over his T20I future and declared that he "had not decided to give up" in the format.



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"Firstly, it is not possible to play back-to-back matches. You need to give them (all format players) enough break. I definitely fall in that as well. We have three T20Is against New Zealand. We will see what happens after IPL. I have not decided to give up the format," Rohit Sharma said in a pre-match press conference on Monday.


India will play their opening game of the three-match ODI against Sri Lanka on Tuesday in Guwahati. The ODIs will be held in Guwahati, Kolkata and Trivandrum on January 10, 12 and 15 respectively. India will be without the services of their pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah for the three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka starting on Tuesday, the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) announced on Monday.


The likes of Virat Kohli, KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer will too return to the squad after being rested for the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka, which Men in Blue clinched by 2-1 under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya. India have a packed calendar ahead, starting with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in February-March against Australia. They are also in contention for a top-two spot in the ICC World Test Championship and later in the year, will host the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup.


Updated squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (vc), Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh.