BCCI announce India squad for upcoming West Indies Tests; Shubman Gill to lead

BCCI announced the Test squad for the upcoming two-match series against the visiting West Indies. Shubman Gill will continue to lead the side while Ravindra Jadeja was announced as the vice-captain of the team, which is a first of its kind honour for one of India’s finest all-rounders in the longest format of the game.

Rishabh Pant’s injury that happened in England is still to heal fully and thereby BCCI opted for N Jagadeesan and Dhruv Jurel to go forth as the steady wicket-keeping choices.

Amongst the ones who were a part of the squad for the England series, Akash Deep, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Anshul Kamboj, Arshdeep Singh and Shardul Thakur alongside an injured Rishabh Pant missed out on a spot. Axar Patel and Devdutt Padikkal will be the ones to step in.

India have picked Padikkal ahead of Karun Nair, the right-hander having failed to impress with just 205 runs from the eight innings that he batted in against England.

India’s chief selector, Ajit Agarkar, opened up on the inclusion of Padikkal, stating, “We expected more from Karun. Padikkal offers a little bit more at this point. Wish we could give everyone 15-20 Tests, unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Padikkal was in the Test squad in Australia, played against England in Dharamsala, got a fifty there. He's shown some decent form. Frankly, we expected a bit more from Karun."

India will be playing two Tests against West Indies which will be starting from October 2nd. The first Test is to be played in Ahmedabad while the second Test will be played in Delhi from October 10th.

India's squad for West Indies Tests:

Shubman Gill (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, B Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja (vice-capt), Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav, N Jagadeesan (wk)