The BCCI has officially confirmed that Rohit Sharma isn’t fit for the first Test match against Bangladesh and that he has been ruled out of the fixture. Three days before the series-opener, the board announced that KL Rahul will be leading the team in Rohit’s absence.
Abhimanyu Easwaran, who captained India A against Bangladesh A, has replaced him. The BCCI has added Navdeep Saini, Jaydev Unadkat and Saurabh Kumar to the squad.
Starting with Rohit, the India captain suffered a thumb injury during the 2nd ODI against Bangladesh earlier this week and walked off the field. He did come out to bat during India’s innings but it was already confirmed that he will spend some time on the sidelines. As of now, he will only miss the opening Test match, to be played from December 14 to 18. Easwaran, Rohit’s replacement, is uncapped in Test cricket.
Saini and Saurabh have replaced Mohammed Shami and Ravindra Jadeja, respectively. Shami is out of the series due to a shoulder injury while Jadeja is out of action due to a knee injury.
Saurabh has been in form since his maiden India call-up earlier this year and is a strong contender to make his Test debut in the series. The left-arm spinner scalped 15 wickets in two unofficial Tests against Bangladesh A.
Unadkat has been rewarded for his purple patch in domestic cricket. He has been in form for Saurashtra for a long time now and the selectors finally rewarded him. It’s after 12 years that Unadkat has been recalled to the Test team. It remains to be seen if will be part of the playing XI or not.
India have never lost a Test match against Bangladesh. Despite the visitor’s below-par performance in the ODI series, they enter the Test series as favourites.
Team India’s updated squad for 1st Test against Bangladesh: KL Rahul (C), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara (VC), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (WK), KS Bharat (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Navdeep Saini, Saurabh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat
