Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra reacted to the BCCI’s announcement of Indian squads for the West Indies white-ball series at home and advised fans to make peace with and move on from the fact that veteran pacers Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar will not play for India again.

For the IPL 2026 winning team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Bhuvneshwar took 28 wickets. On the other hand, Shami has been doing great domestically ever since he last played for India in 2025.

However, Aakash Chopra stated that BCCI picked new names like Auqib Nabi in ODIs and Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav in T20Is for the West Indies series and more or less closed the doors on the return of Shami and Bhuvneshwar.

"So, I think the writing is on the wall when you look at things from Shami and Bhuvi's perspective. From the T20I perspective, you could have thought about Bhuvi. From the ODI perspective, you could have thought about Mohammad Shami. But you are not thinking about them," Chopra said on his YouTube channel.

"And with so many teams, so much overlap, so many new players getting opportunities, Auqib Nabi being named in the ODI team, Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav coming into the T20I setup, and neither Bhuvi nor Shami being there, I think it tells us something. This is probably something we need to accept, make peace with, and keep moving on. That's what I think," Chopra added.

India will be playing three ODIs and five T20Is against West Indies at home. The first ODI will be played in Thiruvananthapuram on September 27; the second ODI will be played on September 30 in Guwahati, and the third ODI on October 3 in New Chandigarh.

The first T20I will be played in Lucknow on October 6; the second T20I will be played on October 9 in Ranchi, and the third T20I will be played on October 11 in Indore. The last two T20Is will be played on October 14 and October 17 in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, respectively.