mumbai rishabh pants career received another shot in the arm on thursday as he earned a maiden callup to the indian odi team for the first two games against the west indies pant will replace another keeperbat dinesh karthik the possibility of which was reported by toi on thursday the team was picked in hyderabad on thursdaythe explosive wicketkeeperbatsmans selection was on the cards after he impressed with the bat in his debut test series in england scoring a hundred in a losing cause in the fifth and final test at the oval and following that up with a quickfire 92 in the first test against the west indies at rajkot pants inclusion is set to add some much needed firepower to the middleorder with the world cup now just nine months away the selectors seem to have taken a wise call to blood the youngster in the odi format at the perfect timequizzed if pant has been included in the side purely as a batsman chief selector former india wicketkeeper msk prasad said yes definitely but if need arises he will be the backup keeperin the present scenario ms dhoni remains the firstchoice keeper till the world cup with race on for the second keepers slot between pant and karthik it is a nobrainer as to who is our no 1 wicketkeeper in search of second wicketkeeper we have given opportunities to dk and right now we are giving an opportunity to rishabh pant at an appropriate time we will take a call as to who is the best among the twofor now pant is being touted as a successor to dhoni who is set to quit after the world cup but the scenario may just change if the legendary keeperbat fails to fire with the bat in the coming monthsin another expected development skipper virat kohli who was rested from the asia cup last month due to mental fatigue returns to lead the side the fivematch series kicks off in guwahati on october 21 kohli will play in the entire fivematch series said prasadin another wise move the selectors have rested pacers bhuvneshwar kumar and jasprit bumrah from the first two odis obviously keeping their potential workload on the long australia tour in mind surprisingly pacer mohammad shami has been included in the squad after a years absence that perhaps is an indication that he could be on the radar for the world cup a regular in tests shami played his last odi in september 2017 against australia in bangalorei have been telling this for quite some time that we are just 18 odis away from the first game of the world cup we need to figure out our fast bowlers and in this process we have picked shami said prasadwith bhuvneshwar and bumrah set to be the firstchoice pacers in the odi team there is a race for the third and fourth seamers slot thats the reason why we have included khaleel ahmed shardul thakur and