Opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan, who will captain Team India during the Sri Lanka tour, on Sunday said it is a "great honour" for him to lead the side.
India and Sri Lanka will lock horns in three ODIs and three T20Is, beginning July 13. The likes of Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, and Suryakumar Yadav are in the white-ball squad.
Dhawan said he is working with Rahul Dravid, the India head coach for the Sri Lanka tour, and the two sync together quite well.
"It is a great honour for me to be the captain of the Indian team and looking forward to it. At the same time, as a team, we are working with Rahul Bhaiya (Rahul Dravid)," said Dhawan in the pre-departure press conference on Sunday.
"I have played under his coaching once for India A, I was the captain over there, so I feel that we guys sync together, whole support staff and the team and we are looking forward to this series," he added.
Dhawan said the focus of the Sri Lanka tour will be to get the best out of young guns.
"There should be a very happy environment in which boys can express themselves and we get the best out of them so that is our focus. We are preparing quite well in the quarantine and now we are looking forward to going to Sri Lanka," said Dhawan.
Meanwhile, Dravid said that he hopes the white-ball squad is able to give good performances and with that, they are able to knock the doors of selectors for a callup for the T20 World Cup which is set to be played later this year.
"So like you said, rightly there are a lot of people in the squad who are pushing for places or looking to cement their places in the sort of T20 World Cup. But the key goal for everyone in the squad and in the team is to try and win the series, we have had discussions around it. That is the primary objective. We are going out there to win the series, hopefully, people get the opportunity to put in good performances in the course of us trying to win the series, and knock the doors of the selectors," said Dravid while replying to anquery during a pre-departure press conference on Sunday.
India's squad: Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (Wicket-keeper), Sanju Samson (Wicket-keeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Vice-captain), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya.
Net Bowlers: Ishan Porel, Sandeep Warrier, Arshdeep Singh, Sai Kishore, Simarjeet Singh.
( With inputs from ANI )
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