Indian T-20 squad for South Africa tour announced, Raina back in team

Suresh Raina, one of the most prolific T20 players in the IPL history is back in the Indian team in the shortest format. BCCI has announced 16 member time for 3 T20 Internationals against South Africa. 

The only major surprise was the inclusion of Suresh Raina. It will be a challenge for the southpaw on bouncy South African wickets, considering he is susceptible to short bowling. Raina is back in the T20 squad after a strong showing in the domestic T20 Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He scored 126 unbeaten against Bengal, followed up with 61 against Tamil Nadu and 56 against Baroda. He only missed out against eventual champion Delhi. However Raina had an indifferent Ranji season, but managed to come good in the final few matches of the Mushtaq Ali Trophy. 

Raina has



played 65 T-20 s for India scoring 1307 runs at an average of 29.70. In IPL, he captained Gujarat Lions in last two editions after being part of CSK in the first 8 editions. He has been retained by CSK in IPL 11. 

The first match of the series will be played on February 18 at Johannesburg followed by the second match in Centurion on February 21 and the concluding match on February 24 in Cape Town.

Here's the full list of players selected for T20I against South Africa:

Virat Kohli(Captain), Rohit Sharma (vc), Shikhar Dhwan, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, MSD (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaspreet Bumrah, Jaydev Unadkat, Shardul Thakur