The Indian selectors led by MSK Prasad have picked up a strong 15-member Test team to face England in the first two Tests. Gautam Gambhir, who scored a fifty in the third and final Test against Kiwis has been included in the team while KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan are yet to recover from the injuries they sustained during the Test series against New Zealand.
The 15-member squad led by Virat Kohli has the likes of R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammad Shami, who were rested for the ODI series against New Zealand to get themselves ready for the Test series against England. Pacer Bhuvvneshwar Kumar, who suffered an ankle injury after the second Test against the Kiwis is yet to regain fitness and has been dropped from the team.
Pace spearhead Ishant Sharma returns to the Test team to face the Poms after missing the New Zealand series due to chikungunya. Jayant Yadav, who replaced Ishant for the series against New Zealand, is also included in the squad along with Karun Nair. In spite of being the leading run scorer after the first four rounds of this season’s Ranji Trophy, Yuvraj Singh was not included in the team.
All eyes will be on Indian spinner Ashwin, who is on a rampage in the last couple of years as he is taking wickets for fun. The visiting teams have had a problem in negating the threat of R Ashwin on turning tracks. The same could the fate of England when the series against India gets underway as they struggled against the Bangladeshi spinners in the recently concluded two-match Test series which ended 1-1.
The inclusion of Hardik Pandya and the exclusion of Rohit Sharma come in as a surprise. Later, it was announced that Rohit sustained a thigh injury in the final ODI and is out for 6-8 weeks. Keeping England’s inability to play spin, the selectors could have picked an extra spinner in chinaman Kuldeep Yadav instead of a pacer.
The Indian squad is set to assemble at Rajkot on November 5 as the venue is scheduled to host the series opener from November 9 to 13. Virat Kohli’s men will look for revenge against the Poms as they beat the hosts under MS Dhoni when they toured India the last time in 2012.
#TeamIndia squad for first two Tests against England. @Paytm Test Cricket #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/9VZX6ETmHy— BCCI (@BCCI) November 2, 2016
Squad: Virat Kohli (c), Gautam Gambhir, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Wriddhiman Saha, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami, Karun Nair, Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra, Jayant Yadav.
Source:SportsKeeda
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