The Indian cricket team has announced its Test squad for the upcoming series against the West Indies, and it features a mix of experienced players and promising young talents. Led by Rohit Sharma, the squad aims to continue India’s dominance in the longest format of the game after a heartbreaking defeat in the World Test Championship Final vs Australia.
After a pretty good run in the red ball format, the Indian team suffered a massive defeat by 209 runs in the World Test Championship Final vs Australia. After that, it has been expected that the squad will through a bit of a transition period. And today’s squad announcement does the steps being taken towards that.
Rohit Sharma will continue to be India’s Test captain while dynamic duo of Shubman Gill and Ruturaj Gaikwad, have been selected and is likely to fight for that opening slot alongside captain Rohit Sharma.
The ever-dependable Virat Kohli will be a crucial figure in the middle order, providing stability and leadership alongside the returning Ajinkya Rahane, who has been appointed as the new vice-captain as Cheteshwar Pujara has been dropped from the team.
The squad also includes the exciting young talent Yashasvi Jaiswal who has been rewarded for his impressive performances in domestic cricket.
In the wicketkeeping department, the squad boasts the services of KS Bharat and Ishan Kishan. The spin department will be spearheaded by the experienced duo of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who have proven their worth time and again with their match-winning performances.
The pace attack will be led by the fiery Mohd. Siraj, supported by the versatile Shardul Thakur and Navdeep Saini. Axar Patel’s left-arm spin and Mukesh Kumar’s swing bowling will provide additional variety and depth to the bowling lineup.
NEWS – India’s squads for West Indies Tests and ODI series announced.
— BCCI (@BCCI) June 23, 2023
TEST Squad: Rohit Sharma (Capt), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ajinkya Rahane (VC), KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Mohd.… pic.twitter.com/w6IzLEhy63
The Test series against the West Indies is scheduled to commence with the first Test from 12th to 16th July, followed by the second Test from 20th to 24th July. Meanwhile, while the squad looks settled, there have been some names who have been overlooked in this player selection. Today in this article, we take a look at 3 players who deserved a call-up but was overlooked by the selectors.
Abhimanyu Easwaran
When we talk about some of the most consistent opening batters in the red ball cricket in India, Abhimanyu Easwaran, playing for Bengal, is at the very top of the list. The Dehradun, Uttarakhand born batsman has been playing for Bengal since 2013 and has played a total of 87 first-class matches and has scored 6557 runs at an average of 47.9. In the most recent Ranji Trophy 2022-2023 season, the right-hand batsman scored 798 runs in 8 matches.
Sarfaraz Khan
Known as ‘India’s own Don Bradman’ Sarfaraz Khan has been very unlikely that despite having an average of 79.7 with 3505 runs in 37 first-class matches, he has never been even called-up to the Indian team. Sarfaraz has been very consistently scoring runs in the red ball game for the last 3 years and is one of the most impressive middle-order batsman in the country, yet he is yet to even receive a call-up.
Akshay Wadkar
Since after Indian team’s most important player in the Test setup Rishabh Pant has been ruled out of the game due to the accident he suffered at the end of the year, the Indian team has since then failed to get a wicketkeeper batter at the calibre of his. It is actually Andhra Pradesh’s Kona Srikar Bharat who has been filling in that spot, but has so far not able to live-up to the demand.
Hard-hitting and mainly a T20 batsman Ishan Kishan is currently being used as his backup. In that case, Vidarbha’s wicketkeeper batsman Akshay Wadkar could have been a perfect replacement for Rishabh Pant and could have served as a long-term competition for him. Akshay has been great domestically having scored 2505 runs in 41 matches with an average of 53.3.
