(Cricket news) India’s squad for the first 2 Tests against Australia. The series is massively important for India as it will determine their fate on the World Test Championship table. Australia are almost guaranteed to make it to the final while India still need to win this upcoming series in order to qualify. India haven’t lost a Test series at home since 2012 which was against England. This Australian team is likely to pose the biggest challenge for the men in blue. The four matches will be played in Nagpur, Delhi, Dharamshala and Ahmedabad.
India’s squad:
Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav
Rohit Sharma is back in the squad and is set to play a Test match after almost a year. Jaydev Unadkat keeps his place in the side after an impressive performance against Bangladesh. Jasprit Bumrah is still injured but the fact that India have announced the squad for only the first two Tests is an indication that he could be fit for the 3rd Test. Ravindra Jadeja is back but his inclusion is subject to fitness and he could still be ruled out later. The management will have to choose between Shubman Gill and KL Rahul as Rohit Sharma’s opening partner.
Abhimanyu Easwaran, Navdeep Saini and Saurabh Kumar who were in the squad as injury replacements have been dropped as others have got fit. Shardul Thakur has also been dropped purely because India don’t need a fast bowling all-rounder in home conditions. Ishan Kishan has been called up in Tests for the first time as the replacement for Rishabh Pant. He fits the criteria of Pant replacement perfectly as an aggressive left hand batter and keeper. KS Bharat has been traveling with the squad for a while and he is likely to play as the keeper batter.
The biggest call is perhaps the selection for Suryakumar Yadav. It is understandable why the selectors have taken this call. SKY has been doing really well in T20Is and has a lot of experience playing international cricket even against Australia. The big flaw is that his ODI record is not as good as his T20I record which is an indication that he may not work out in red ball cricket. Having said that he averages 44 in the Ranji trophy having played a lot of games for Mumbai. His last Ranji trophy game was against Hyderabad where he scored a quickfire 90.
The call is extremely harsh on Sarfaraz Khan who has been scoring runs for fun in the Ranji trophy. There is not much more he can do at this point to get a call up. Suryakumar Yadav getting selected ahead of him really undermines the Ranji trophy system especially for players who excel in only red ball cricket. Hanuma Vihari still has no place in the team and he hasn’t got anywhere near enough chances. The first 2 Tests in this series are extremely important and if Australia manage to get a win then India will be under a lot of pressure.
Also read: Bowlers lead India to victory in the 2nd ODI Vs Sri Lanka
