Mumbai, Oct 23 (IANS) Hyderabad pacer Mohammed Siraj and Mumbai batsman Shreyas Iyer are the fresh inclusions in the India squad for the three Twenty20 Internationals (T20I) against New Zealand, starting November 1.

Veteran Ashish Nehra has been picked only for the first T20I in New Delhi, which is slated to be his last match.

“Iyer has been prolific across formats — in first-class, one-dayers, T20 — he’s been performing consistently,” chairman of selectors M.S.K. Prasad told reporters here on Monday.

“If we pick a player, we will give him a long run. The same applies for Siraj.”

While Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla will host the first of the three T20Is on November 1, the second and third games will be played on November 4 and 7 respectively at Rajkot and Thiruvananthapuram.

Meanwhile, the spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja made a comeback to the longest format as the selectors also recalled opener Murali Vijay to the squad, announced for the first two Tests against Sri Lanka.

India skipper Virat Kohli may be rested for the final contest of the three-match Test series against Sri Lanka and the subsequent limited-overs series against the same opponents in order to keep him fresh for the tour of South Africa which starts on December 30.

“With regards to Virat Kohli, there was some speculation that he is going to be rested for the whole of Sri Lankan series, it is not right. As far as the Test series is concerned, he is going to play and at some point of time, the rotation policy that we are following will apply to the captain,” Prasad said.

“We are also monitoring his workload. He has been playing continuously right from the Indian Premier League (IPL) till today, we need to give him a break which we will consider after the Test series,” he added.

The committee also named the Board President’s XI for two-day warm-up tie against Sri Lanka to be played in Kolkata on November 11 and 12.

The first Test will be played in Kolkata from November 16-20 while Nagpur will host the second Test from November 24-28. The final Test will be played in Delhi from December 2-6.

Squad for T20I vs New Zealand: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Lokesh Rahul, Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Ashish Nehra (only for first T20I).

Squad for first two Tests against Sri Lanka: Virat Kohli (Captain), Lokesh Rahul, Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (Vice-Captain), Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma.

Board President XI for 2-day warm-up tie against Sri Lanka: Naman Ojha (Captain & WK), Sanju Samson, Jiwanjot Singh, B Sandeep, Tanmay Agarwal, Abhishek Gupta, Rohan Prem, Akash Bhandari, Jalaj Saxena, Chama Milind, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Warrier, Ravi Kiran.

–IANS
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