MUMBAI: Ajinkya Rahane is currently suffering from a serious Grade 3 hamstring injury and will be ruled out of India's tour of England in June-July. The former India captain has already lost his place in the Test-playing 11. Hanuma Vihari and Shreyas Iyer proved their worth and dealt a heavy blow to Rahane but a serious injury could put the pressure on the Mumbai player. It is expected that the Indian team for the tour of England will be announced this week. The Indian team will leave on June 16 for the tour of England.
Ajinkya Rahane will leave the Kolkata Knight Riders bubble on Monday evening. He suffered this injury in the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on 14 May. In this match played in Pune, Rahane did not come to the field to field. Sources in the BCCI said that Rahane will now report to the NCA in Bengaluru and his rehab will continue for about three to four weeks. Let us tell you that in IPL 2022, Rahane scored 133 runs in seven matches.
The non-availability of Ajinkya Rahane will not worry the selectors much as his options are available. The selection committee headed by Chetan Sharma is expected to select two teams. One for the England tour and the other for the home T20 series against South Africa. The situation is similar to last year when India selected different teams for the tour of England and Sri Lanka.
According to the Cricbuzz report, the regular players - Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Cheteshwar Pujara will be selected for the tour of England. These players will be rested for the home T20 International series against South Africa. The series against South Africa will be played from June 9 to 19.
The Indian squad for the series against South Africa could see a mix of experienced and youthful performers in the IPL. Tilak Verma, Umran Malik, Arshdeep Singh, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Famous Krishna, Avesh Khan Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and others may get a chance. Dhawan can be made the captain. Some changes can be seen in the responsibilities of head coach Rahul Dravid and the coaching staff.
There is also a possibility that the squad that will play against South Africa will be retained for the two T20 Internationals against Ireland while the senior team will be busy in England.