India pick Nehra, Karthik for Australia T20s; Dhawan back

India have brought back veteran pace bowler Ashish Nehra for the three T20s against Australia which start on October 7. Another familiar face returning to the squad is wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik. Shikhar Dhawan, who had been granted leave to skip the preceding ODIs against Australia to tend to his ill wife, returns for the T20s.

Nehra last played an international in February, in the shortest format against the touring England side, before missing India's T20s against West Indies and Sri Lanka. Karthik had played against West Indies but missed the one-off game against Sri Lanka. The two men to miss out from that squad for Sri Lanka are fast bowler Shardul Thakur and batsman Ajinkya Rahane - though, perhaps, Rahane's omission is hardly a point of note given the last time he featured in India's T20 XI was in August last year.

India's premier spinners in the Test format, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, do not feature in the squad. They had been rested for the Australia ODIs too, and though Jadeja was brought in when Axar Patel injured himself, he did not get a game in the series.

India are coming off a 4-1 victory over Australia in those ODIs. The first T20 is in Ranchi, followed by games in Guwahati and Hyderabad to round-off Australia's limited-overs tour of India.

Squad: Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma (vice-capt), 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
In: Ashish Nehra, Dinesh Karthik, Shikhar Dhawan
Out: Ajinkya Rahane, Shardul Thakur