Wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant suddenly felt discomfort in his lower right abdomen while batting in the nets during India’s practice session at the BCA Stadium in Vadodara on Saturday afternoon, BCCI said in a statement. After which he was immediately taken for an MRI scan and the BCCI medical team discussed his clinical and radiological results in detail with an expert. Pant has been diagnosed with a side strain (oblique muscle tear) and hence has been ruled out of the ODI series.

In place of Pant, the selection committee has included Dhruv Jurel in the team. Jurel has joined the Indian team in Vadodara.

However, Pant’s exit will not affect India’s first choice playing eleven, because KL Rahul is the first choice as wicketkeeper. Let us tell you that recently Pant captained the Delhi team in Vijay Hazare Trophy and took it to the quarter-finals. In batting, he scored two half-centuries in six innings.

Jurel, who is yet to make his ODI debut, will replace Rahul and comes into the side having scored fifty-plus runs six times in his last seven List A innings. He also converted two of these innings into centuries for Uttar Pradesh. Let us tell you that he had returned to form after his disappointing performance in the Test series against South Africa.

Indian team for ODI series against New Zealand

Shubman Gill (captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Shreyas Iyer (vice-captain), Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Harshit Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel (wicketkeeper).