Manjrekar chose his opener to replace Rohit.
Cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has picked his playing XI for the first ODI between India and Australia, to be played on Nov 27, Friday. He surprised everyone by keeping Ravindra Jadeja out of the XI and picked left-arm chinaman Kuldeep Yadav, over him.
Manjrekar knows the left-arm offie would make it to the playing XI and that's why he subtly added that skipper Virat Kohli would pick him even though he doesn't.
The 55-year-old named Mayank Agarwal to open the innings with Shikhar Dhawan in the absence of Rohit Sharma. He is playing KL Rahul at number five in his playing XI.
Rahul, the new wicket-keeper batsman for India in limited-overs, has done well at that spot in the last few matches.
The rest of the players were the regular ones, apart from the one spot for the pace bowler. Manjrekar hasn't decided between Shardul Thakur and Navdeep Saini for the third pacer's place.
"Here you go Vaibhav.. Based on the principle of playing specialists - 1- Shikhar 2- Mayank 3- Virat 4- Shreyas 5- Rahul 6- Manish 7- Shami 8- Kuldeep( Virat will pick Jadeja ) 9- Chahal 10- Bumrah 11- Shardul/ Saini", tweeted Manjrekar, responding to a fan.
Manjrekar doesn't rate Jadeja highly and he has even called him a 'bits and pieces' cricketer in the past. His comments had offended the all-rounder which led to a bitter conflict between them on social media.