4 Indian players who might be dropped for the ODI series against South Africa

2. Kedar Jadhav

More than Kedar Jadav’s performances, his mere presence in the XI has raised several questions regarding the team selection and combination. The 34-year-old who last bowled against West Indies at Chennai in December 2019 made the cut in the first two games given his useful off-spin spells apart from his valuable knocks lower down the order. But Jadhav who scored 26* and 9 at Hamilton and Auckland did not bowl in those two fixtures.

Despite his late cameo at Seddon Park, his batting came under the scanner in the second ODI as he took 27 balls to score nine runs while chasing 274 runs for staying alive in the three-match series. This led to his exclusion from the XI for the third ODI at Mount Maunganui where he was replaced by Karnataka batsman Manish Pandey.

The 30-year-old Pandey made much of this opportunity by amassing a vital 42(48) thereby helping India to put up a challenging total (274 runs) on board after KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer’s heroics. With Pandey contributing vital runs despite after coming in at number six, it doesn’t augur well for the Chennai Super Kings all-rounder who did not live up to the expectations. Instead, a talented player like Suryakumar Yadav might be brought in against South Africa.