Recovered Pant back in Test squad against South Africa, Gill named captain

Wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant is back in the team after an impressive show in the four-day game for India A as captain against South Africa A at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru

Hyderabad: The BCCI Senior selection committee named Shubman Gill as the captain for the two-match Test series against South Africa.

Wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant is back in the team after an impressive show in the four-day game for India A as captain against South Africa A at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.

---

The dashing batter will replace N Jagadeesan while pacer Akash Deep, who was recovering from a back injury that ruled him out of the Duleep Trophy after his return from England tour and played the first two games in the Ranji Trophy for Bengal this season, takes over another pacer Prasidh Krishna’s place in the team that had defeated West Indies 2-0 at home recently.

It is informed that Gill, Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar, who are in the T-20 squad now in Australia, will join the Test team after the T-20 series ends on November 8 in ‘Down Under’.

It may be mentioned here that Kuldeep Yadav, who was released from the T-20I squad in Australia already, will be playing for India A in the four-day game against South Africa A starting from November 6.

India plays two Tests against South Africa from November 14 in Kolkata, and then from November 22 in Guwahati, a city that will be hosting Test cricket for the first time.

India is now third on the World Test Championship table with 61.90% points, while South Africa is fifth with 50% points after the one-all draw against Pakistan recently.

The selection panel also named Hyderabadi and recent Asia Cup player of the final Tilak Varma as the captain of the India-A one-day squad for the three-match series against South Africa A to be held in Rajkot.

The teams:

India’s Test squad: Shubman Gill (capt), Rishabh Pant (wk) (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep.

India A’s squad for one-day team: Tilak Varma (capt), Ruturaj Gaikwad (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Riyan Parag, Ishan Kishan (wk), Ayush Badoni, Nishant Sindhu, Vipraj Nigam, Manav Suthar, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Khaleel Ahmed, Prabhsimran Singh (wk).