Mumbai: The Indians squads for the upcoming home series against Afghanistan were announced on Tuesday.
Among the notable decisions announced by chief selector Ajit Agarkar was the ‘promotion’ of KL Rahul to the post of vice-captain, at the expense of wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant.
“I don’t think there is any concern with his (Pant’s) spot in the Test team. I think he is one of our main batters in that line-up,” Agarkar said, clearing any possible doubts over Pant’s place in the playing XI.
Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja have been rested from the 15-member squad that will be led by Shubman Gill.
Three rookies — Manav Suthar, Gurnoor Brar and Harsh Dubey — have been included in the squad for the one-off Test against Afghanistan, to be held in New Chandigarh from June 6 to 10.
Rajasthan’s Suthar (23) is a left-arm spinning allrounder. So is Dubey from Vidarbha, also 23 years of age, while 25-year-old Brar is a medium-pacer from Punjab.
Gill’s men will be desperately hoping to beat a relatively-inexperienced Afghanistan after having suffered a 0-2 rout at the hands of South in their last home Test series.
The Test match will be followed by three ODIs — Dharamsala (June 14), Lucknow (June 17) and Chennai (June 20) – in which ‘veterans’ Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli will be in action.
Rohit and Hardik Pandya’s selection, though, are subject to fitness. The Mumbai Indians duo has been carrying injuries in the IPL, and missed a few games.
Shreyas Iyer has been named Hill’s deputy in the ODIs. Fast bowlers Prince Yadav and Brar, along with Dubey, got their maiden ODI call-ups.
INDIA TEST SQUAD
Shubman Gill (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul (vice-capt) Sai Sudharsan, Rishabh Pant, Devdutt Padikkal, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Manav Suthar, Gurnoor Brar, Harsh Dubey, Dhruv Jurel.
INDIA ODI SQUAD
Shubman Gill (capt), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (vice-capt), KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Prince Yadav, Gurnoor Brar, Harsh Dubey.
