Mumbai: India named four spinners — Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav — in their Test squad for the first two matches of the ICC World Test Championship series at home against England.
The familiar-looking Test squad also has a strong pace attack featuring Jasprit Bumrah, who was also named as vice-captain, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar and Avesh Khan, all of whom were also there for the Tests in South Africa.
Mohammed Shami continues to recover from his injury while Ishan Kishan, who had asked for a break previously during the South Africa tour and Afghanistan T20Is, was not named in the squad.
In Kishan’s absence, uncapped wicketkeeper batter Dhruv Jurel was named in the squad. KL Rahul and KS Bharat are the other wicketkeepers in the squad.
Jurel was the vice-captain of the India U19 squad that reached the finals of the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup four years ago.
The batting group remains the same with Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rahul and Shubman Gill taking up the middle-order spots. Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal are the openers in the squad.
The five-match Test series begins on January 25 in Hyderabad.
India Test squad for first two England Tests: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Avesh Khan.
