Mumbai 16 August : Left-arm spinner and all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed has been included in the Indian team for the upcoming one-day international series against Zimbabwe to replace the injured Washington Sundar, the BCCI announced on Tuesday.Sundar has been exiled of the Zimbabwe series due to an injury to his shoulder.
He suffered the injury to his shoulder after he fell hard on it while playing for Lancashire in the Royal London Cup in England.
The all-rounder was not able to come back to the field following the injury and was unable to take part in the following games.
In the meantime, Shahbaz has been rewarded with his first call-up to the team for his outstanding achievements in the Indian Premier League (IPL) with the Royal Challengers Bangalore.An all-rounder by nature, Ahmed is a left-hand batter as well as a left-arm orthodox spinner.
In the IPL 2022 season, he scored 219 runs in 16 matches .He also took four wickets.
The 27-year-old, uncapped has played 26 List A matches, scoring 662 runs with an average of 47.28 and grabbing 24 wickets for an economy rate of 4.43.
On the contrary, it’s been a difficult year for Sundar with the latest injury adding to the numerous setbacks he has endured since the beginning of the year.Sundar, 22, was ruled out of the series against Sri Lanka and West Indies in February because of an injury to his hamstring.Before that, the Covid-19 virus prevented him from travelling to South Africa for the ODI series.
A fresh-faced India will face Zimbabwe in the series of three matches with the visitors buoyed with the return of KL Rahul, who is expected to lead the side.
Harare Sports Club will be the host for the three ODIs from August 18-22 and the series will be played in the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League which will determine the automatic spots to qualify for the World Cup next year.
The Rohit Sharma-led India is currently in 7th in the standings with 79 points in 12 games.Zimbabwe are at the bottom, ranked 13th with just 35 points from 15 games.
India are already qualified to play in the World Cup by virtue of hosting the tournament but will be hoping to climb in the rankings at the cost of Zimbabwe which is in urgent require of points to remain in contention for automatic qualification spots.
India squad: KL Rahul (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan (vice-captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper), Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mohd Siraj, Deepak Chahar, Shahbaz Ahmed.
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