Harshit Rana down with viral, didn't travel to Hyderabad stadium with India team: BCCI

Pace all-rounder Harshit Rana is down with a viral infection and stayed back in the hotel when the rest of India's side traveled to Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium for the third T20I against Bangladesh.

With the series already won, the 23-year-old would have been in line to make his international debut. Other IPL performers like Nitish Kumar Reddy and Mayank Yadav also got their maiden caps earlier in the series.

"Mr. Harshit Rana was unavailable for selection for the third T20I due to a viral infection and did not travel with the team to the stadium," the BCCI said in an update on X.

India's Playing 11: Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Nitish Reddy, Hardik Pandya, Riyan Parag, Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, and Mayank Yadav.

Although the youngster would see it as a missed golden chance, his IPL team, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), won't mind this. The new IPL retention rules allow franchises to hold onto one uncapped player at an expense of ₹4 crore whereas capped players' prices start from ₹11 crore.

So as the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) and the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) will have to shell out big money for Reddy and Yadav, Harshit could still technically be retained for a bargain price. The right-arm pacer took the most wickets for an uncapped player in IPL 2024 -- 19 at an average of 20.15 -- and fourth-highest overall.

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Harshit Rana is in India's squad as a reserve for New Zealand Tests

As another example of Harshit's growing stature, he, along with Rana, Yadav and Prasidh Krishna is part of India's reserves for the three-Test series against New Zealand at home. A debut there is unlikely, too, unless there are a host of injuries but it shows that the BCCI selectors see him as a multi-format option.

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