The hard-hitting Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan has been included in the 15-man squad for the upcoming three-match T20I against Australia. The ‘Gabbar’ of Indian cricket was also included in the ODI squad but opted out to look after his ailing wife. Rahane took his place in the line-up and made most of his opportunities, slamming four consecutive fifties, while opening the batting with Rohit Sharma.

But his time with the team is up as he has been left out of the squad to make way for the southpaw. Moreover, Rahane hasn’t been part of the line-up in the shortest format of the game for a while now as he didn’t feature in the one-off T201 against Sri Lanka last month as well.

Apart from Dhawan, Ashish Nehra and Dinesh Karthik are also included in the squad. Nehra is seen as a T20 specialist while Karthik did very well during India’s tour of West Indies.

Squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Axar Patel.