Rishabh Pant Left Out Of West Indies ODI Squad, Report Reveals What Went Against Him
Rishabh Pant has been named captain of the Rest of India team for the Irani Cup with burly Mumbai batter Sarfaraz Khan as the vice-captain.
- Press Trust Of India
- Updated: September 17, 2026 09:18 am IST
- Rishabh Pant was ignored by the selectors for the ODI series against West Indies
- According to a report, selectors went by the feedback from the important members of the team management
- As per the feedback, Pant hasn't done justice to his phenomenal talent when it comes to white ball cricket
Rookie Punjab all-rounder Naman Dhir and Jammu and Kashmir seamer Auqib Nabi earned their maiden call-ups to India's ODI squad for the upcoming series against the West Indies, while veterans Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant were ignored for separate reasons. The PTI had reported that KL Rahul will be the vice-captain in absence of Shreyas Iyer. India will play three ODIs and five T20Is against the West Indies starting September 27 in Thiruvananthapuram. The T20I side will comprise mostly the Asian Games squad with Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav coming in place of Yash Thakur and Vipraj Nigam.
Case of Pandya and Pant
While Pandya is supposed to be declared fit on September 20, the national selection panel won't pick him if he doesn't prove that he is fit to bowl 10 overs for India A.
While a section in BCCI wanted Pandya to play against the West Indies directly since he could be cleared by the COE for his 'Return To Play' by September 20, the selection panel is clear that "not six overs but Pandya will only be included when he starts bowling full quota of 10 overs." Also in a significant move, the selectors pulled out Nitish Kumar Reddy out of the Asian Games squad to include him in the ODI side for the West Indies series.
The reason being absence of Pandya and lack of seam bowling all-round options who could have been tried.
Since Pandya's fitness has been dodgy, Reddy is being seen as his heir apparent.
It is understood that his services is of more importance in the ODI set-up rather than T20I competition at the Asian Games where most teams are of no match to India's quality and might.
In case of Rishabh Pant, it is understood that selectors went by the feedback from the important members of the team management who feel that the maverick keeper-batter hasn't done justice to his phenomenal talent when it comes to white ball cricket.
As reported by the PTI, Pant has been named captain of the Rest of India team for the Irani Cup with burly Mumbai batter Sarfaraz Khan as the vice-captain.
India's ODI team: Shubman Gill (C), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ruturaj Gaikwad, KL Rahul (VC), Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Mohammed Siraj, Auqib Nabi, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Naman Dhir.
India's T20I team: Shreyas Iyer (C), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan (WK), Sanju Samson (WK), Tilak Varma (VC), Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav.
Rest of India squad: Rishabh Pant [C, WK], Sanat Sangwan, Shikhar Mohan, Sudip Gharami, Sarfaraz Khan [VC], Smaran Ravichandran, Manav Suthar, Saransh Jain, Akash Deep*, Mukesh Kumar, Mukesh Choudhary, Aryan Juyal [WK], Aryan Pandey, Anukul Roy, Ayush Doseja.
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