BCCI keen to keep Harshit Rana in both ODIs and Tests against New Zealand
BCCI wants Harshit Rana available for ODIs and Tests despite his thigh injury recovery.
India will play five T20Is, five ODIs and two Tests against New Zealand starting later this month. The selectors and team management want to retain Harshit Rana across formats despite his ongoing recovery from a rectus femoris strain. Rana missed recent T20Is against Afghanistan and the Asian Games due to the thigh injury.
Times of India reported that selectors view Rana as the ideal seam-bowling all-rounder batting at number eight. Rishabh Pant and Prasidh Krishna are also recovering from injuries and have been given a three-week recovery timeline by the Centre of Excellence. Neither Rana nor Krishna was named in the T20I squad.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar earned a recall while Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav and Mayank Yadav remain in the T20I squad. The T20I series begins on 22 October.
CricHubb Take
By shielding Rana, Pant and Krishna with three-week buffers, India is signalling that depth at the all-rounder and fast-bowling spots now outweighs short-term series considerations.