It is not yet known if Sharma will be take over the T20 captaincy permanently.

The BCCI press release announcing the squad for the upcoming three-match home T20I series against New Zealand, which begins on November 17, named Sharma as captain. KL Rahul has been named Rohit’s deputy.

“I think it’s not such a bad thing because of the bubble and the amount of cricket being played. The players need to be rotated around and given the space, they need to spend some time with their families, see their parents. As I said, when a guy doesn’t go home for six months, he might have his family with him, but if he’s got parents and other family and you don’t get a chance to see them, it’s not easy at all. So I think it’s not such a bad thing. I think in Rohit you’ve got a very capable guy, he’s won so many IPLs and he’s the vice-captain of this side. He’s ready in the wings to take that job,” outgoing head coach Ravi Shastri said about Sharma in a press conference.

No Usual Suspects in T20 Squad

The squad is without a number of first-choice players, among whom are Kohli himself, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami.

India squad for T20Is against New Zealand:

Rohit Sharma (capt), KL Rahul (vice-capt), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj.

India Vs New Zealand Series

Jaipur, Ranchi and Kolkata will host the first three T20s, while Kanpur and Mumbai will host the two Test matches.

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