India rest Kohli for Sri Lanka series

India have rested batting star Virat Kohli for their three Twenty20 matches against Sri Lanka this month with an eye on the World T20 on home soil.

Kohli, the world's top-ranked T20 batsman, enjoyed a prolific run of form to help India complete a 3-0 series whitewash in the KFC T20 INTL Series against Australia on Sunday.

With MS Dhoni's men kicking off their bid for a second Twenty20 world title in six weeks, the team have decided to rest Kohli, who was top-scorer in the series in Australia.

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He also starred in the Victoria Bitter ODI series that preceded the T20s, returning scores of 91, 59, 117, 106, 8, 90*, 59* and 50 from eight international matches on tour.

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India have also recalled Bhuvneshwar Kumar after the paceman sustained a thumb injury in Australia and missed the Twenty20 series.

Left-arm spinner Pawan Negi received his first call-up to the India squad, who play Sri Lanka in the first Twenty20 International in Pune on February 9. Ranchi and Visakhapatnam host the other matches.

The series against Sri Lanka will be followed by the 2016 Asia Cup in Bangladesh between Feburary 24 and March 6, a T20 tournament featuring the hosts, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and one of Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Oman and the UAE

Squad: MS Dhoni (captain), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Pawan Negi.