Rahane named in India squad for South Africa Tests, replaced by Rohit as vice-captain

Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara retained their places in the 18-man Indian Test squad for the tour of South Africa.

India batter Ajinkya Rahane ahs struggled for form of late.

Rohit Sharma has replaced the under-fire Ajinkya Rahane as the vice-captain of the Test team but the middle-order batter has retained his place in the 18-man Indian squad for the tour of South Africa.

After a break from the two Tests at home against New Zealand, pacers Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah, and wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant made their returns.

The injured trio of Shubman Gill, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja did not make the cut.

Squad: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), R Ashwin, Jayant Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Md. Siraj.

Standby Players: Navdeep Saini, Saurabh Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Arzan Nagwaswalla.