Raina named captain for Zimbabwe series

Suresh-RainaIt was déjà vu for the young UP batsman Suresh Raina. He was the leading the Chennai Super Kings last month at the absence of the injured Skipper MS Dhoni. But he probably didn't know it then, it was a sign of some good things to come. He will be captaining team India for the upcoming series against Zimbabwe.

The BCCI selection meeting has announced the 15-member squad for the Zimbabwe tour in which Raina is named as captain with Virat Kohli as his deputy. Some of the senior players like Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh anlong with the skipper MS Dhoni have been rested for the tour.

Dinesh Karthik will keep the wickets in Dhoni's absence and Naman Ojha will be the back-up keeper. Pankaj Singh, R Ashwin and Ashok Dinda have been assigned their ODI jerseys along with Naman.

The team includes Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma and Murali Vijay as specialist batsmen with Ravindra Jadeja as an all-rounder. Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha have managed to come back to the ODI team while Robin Uthappa's wait to return to the Indian team continues.