India’s Test squad against West Indies: The selectors have named a 15-member Test squad for the series against West Indies.
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The Indian Test team for the upcoming series against West Indies has been announced. Post India’s 1-4 drubbing in England, the selectors chose to make a handful of changes to the Indian squad. In a development which was on the expected lines, Virat Kohli, who was rested for the Asia Cup, has been named in the Test series.
Among the other major changes to the Test team are the maiden Test call-ups for Mayank Agarwal and Mohammad Siraj. Shikhar Dhawan, Karun Nair and Dinesh Karthik, all of whom were a part of the Test team for the England series, have been dropped. Dhawan had a terrible time with the bat in England, scoring 162 runs in four Test matches at a paltry average of 20.25 and a strike rate of 55.47. Nair, on the other hand, was shown a blind eye as debutant Hanuma Vihari was picked over him in the last match of the series.
Karnataka’s 27-year old Agarwal was knocking the doors of the national team for the last year or so. His stellar form across formats had made his inclusion just a matter of time. In 43 First-class matches, Agarwal has scored 3,372 runs at a whopping average of 50.32 and a strike rate of 60.93.
In the last Ranji season, Agarwal was the highest run-scorer, scoring 1,160 runs in eight Tests at a mammoth average of 105.45 and a strike rate of 68.80. His 2,141 runs in last year’s domestic season was the highest total by any batsman in the Indian domestic season.
Siraj, who made his T20I debut against New Zealand at Rajkot last year, has been given reward of continuing performance for Hyderabad and India A in the last year. In 20 First-class appearances, Siraj has a colossal 97 wickets to his name, which have come at an average of 18.92, an economy rate of 2.96 and strike rate of 38.3. Recently, he had registered his career-best figures against Australia A.
The injured pair of Hardik Pandya and Ishant Sharma haven’t been named in the squad. Whereas, Jasprit Bumrah has been rested in a bid to manage his workload. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has also been not named because of the same reason.
The squad announced also means that Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli managed their respective fitness tests and that Prithvi Shaw will open the batting with Lokesh Rahul in the first Test at Rajkot.
Below is the full squad:
Watch some of the Twitter reactions on the new squad below:
