Ahmedabad: Shubman Gill’s elevation to ODI captaincy was clearly because the selectors want him to have enough exposure as leader of the ODI team before the next World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia in Oct-Nov 2027. It’s was unclear if India’s Test vice-captain Ravindra Jadeja, the player of the match in the Ahmedabad Test that concluded on Saturday, would be able to fit in that vision for 2027, since he has not been included for the ODI leg.Jadeja has already retired from the T20I format and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have retired from Tests and T20Is.“Obviously at some stage you got to start looking at where the next World Cup is,” chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar stressed.Admitting that it was a difficult call to remove Rohit as captain, Agarkar said that Rohit was informed about the decision but refused to divulge the details of the conversation.“That’s a conversation between Rohit and me. Even if he did not win the Champions Trophy as captain, it would have been a difficult decision because of how good he’s been for India. But you’ve got to sometimes look at what’s coming forward, where you stand as a team, and eventually look at what’s in the best interest of the team, whether it’s now or maybe six months later. Those are the calls that I suppose we are put in place to make here.”The former India allrounder explained that because there are so few one-day games being played, the selectors feel that calls related to captaincy changes needed to be made early. “It’s practically impossible to have three different captains for three formats in terms of planning. You’ve got to start planning. You play the ODI format the least. We have to try and give the other guy enough chance to get that confidence of leading another format.”Agarkar did not say it in as many words but mentioned that the team picked was only for the Australia tour, and Rohit and Kohli’s inclusion or Jadeja’s exclusion offers no guarantees that they would be picked or omitted in the side for the 2027 World Cup.“As far as the 27 World Cup is concerned, I don’t think we need to talk about it today.”He, however, said in a no-nonsense manner that both Kohli and Rohit would be expected to play some form of domestic cricket. “That is the only way you can remain sharp, by playing cricket. We have been clear over the last two years that if you are available, you are expected to play in domestic cricket.”About Jadeja’s exclusion, Agarkar explained that the conditions in Australia would not warrant the need for two left-arm spinners. “It was not possible to take two left-arm spinners to Australia (Axar Patel is there in the ODI squad too),” he said.ODI squad for Australia tour: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (vc), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal.T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill (vc), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Sanju Samson (wk), Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar.
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