Suresh Raina has been named in India's squad for the three-match T20 International series against South Africa next month.

The 31-year-old last played for India in a T20 International against England on February 1, 2017. He had made an impressive 63 off 45 balls but did not feature in subsequent T20I series against Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Australia.

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Raina was one of three players along with MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja to be retained by Chennai Super Kings.

Last year in the IPL, Raina had scored 442 runs from 14 matches for Gujarat Lions. He was included in the Indian team after successfully clearing the Yo Yo Test in December last year.

Raina's experience as a T20 cricketer will be valuable to the Indian team in challenging South African conditions. He is the all-time leading run-scorer in the IPL with 4540 runs. He is currently 122 runs ahead of Virat Kohli (4418 runs), who was also retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Raina is also one of three Indian batsmen with a T20 International hundred.

India squad: Virat Kohli (Captain) Rohit Sharmna (Vice-Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Jaydev Unadkat, Shardul Thakur