Gambhir: Gill 'ready to start' T20Is against South Africa

He had suffered a neck injury while batting during the Kolkata Test last month

Shubman Gill will be back playing for India at the start of the T20Is against South Africa on Tuesday with head coach Gautam Gambhir confirming that he is "fit and fine and ready to go."

Gill suffered a neck injury last month - understood to involve a pinched nerve - while batting during the Kolkata Test match. He had moved to the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru to recover - the initial timeline that the BCCI had drawn up for him involved five weeks of rest before resuming training.

After completing a 2-1 victory over South Africa in the ODIs on Saturday, Gambhir addressed the press saying, "yes, Shubhman is ready to start. That's why he has been selected. And obviously he is fit and fine, hungry to go."

In the absence of Gill, Rishabh Pant had stepped in as captain in the second Test in Guwahati, where India suffered their biggest Test defeat, in terms of runs. In the following ODI series, Yashasvi Jaiswal opened the batting, in place of Gill, along with Rohit Sharma and helped India win the decider in Vizag with his maiden ODI hundred. Gill is now set to return to the top in T20Is and reunite with his good friend Abhishek Sharma.

India have been bolstered further by the return of allrounder Hardik Pandya after an injury had layoff kept him out of action for over two months.

The five T20Is against South Africa will be played on December 9, 11, 14, 17 and 19 in Cuttack, New Chandigarh, Dharamsala, Lucknow and Ahmedabad respectively. Suryakumar Yadav will lead the side while Gill will be his deputy.

India's T20I squad for South Africa series

Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Shubman Gill (vice-capt), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar