New Delhi, Sept. 16 -- Rookie Punjab all-rounder Naman Dhir and Jammu and Kashmir seamer Auqib Nabi earned their maiden call-ups to India's ODI squad for the upcoming series against the West Indies, while veterans Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant were ignored for separate reasons.

The PTI had reported that KL Rahul will be the vice-captain in absence of Shreyas Iyer.

India will play three ODIs and five T20Is against the West Indies starting September 27 in Thiruvananthapuram.

The T20I side will comprise mostly the Asian Games squad with Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav coming in place of Yash Thakur and Vipraj Nigam.

Meanwhile, after the Asian Games Jasprit Bumrah will directly play ODIs in New Zealand.

Jadeja earns a recall

While Ravindra Jadeja's white ball stocks are on the wane, Axar Patel's presence in the

Asian Games squad and Harsh Dubey's untimely hamstring injury provided the 37-year-old all-rounder with another ODI lifeline.

Jadeja will get

to play all three games and can once again put Axar under pressure as the selectors zero in on core 20 members.

Dhir and Nabi more of reserves

Strangely, Naman Dhir's best performances has come in T20s for Mumbai Indians while Auqib

Nabi has done wonders with the red ball in

the Ranji Trophy. But there weren't too many options available as far as the reserve middle-order batting all-rounder and extra pacer is concerned.

Dhir has played only 14 List A Games for Punjab in the Vijay Hazare Trophy

scoring 357 runs at an average of 39, a strike-rate of 106 and four

half-centuries to go with a top score of 97.

He has also taken 7 wwickets with his part-time off-breaks.

Nabi, on his part, has 56 wickets from 36 List A games for Jammu

and Kashmir and also bowls at a decent economy rate of 5.20.

But it is highly unlikely that either Dhir or Nabi will get a look-in in the first XI.

Akash Deep added to Rest of India squad

Akash Deep, who has been out with a back stress fracture for the past seven months, has been picked in the Rest of India squad subject to fitness.

He is recovering and is nearing completion of his Return To Play protocols before he could be picked for the October 1-5 game in Srinagar.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.