Off-spinner Jayant Yadav, who is in South Africa for the ongoing three-match Test series, has been asked to stay back for the upcoming three-match ODI series which begins on January 19 in Paarl.

He has been picked as the replacement for Washington Sundar, who tested positive for the COVID-19 before departure. The rest of the players selected for the ODIs, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Venkatesh Iyer, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Prasidh Krishna departed for Cape Town on Wednesday morning.

"It has been decided that Jayant will stay back in South Africa. There was very little time to get any other player inside the bubble in Mumbai," a BCCI source told TOI.

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Washington Sundar would have been an asset in absence of Akshar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja, both injured. And now it seems the off-spinner from Haryana has impressed head coach Rahul Dravid and his ability with the bat seems to have earned him points.

Jayant has a sound batting technique and is reliable down the order. He has a Test century against his name too. He is being seen as a like-for-like replacement for Washington.

The other two spinners in the team are Yuzvendra Chahal and R Ashwin. Ashwin returned to the Indian ODI squad for the first time since 2017. 

(Times of India report)