 "Jasprit Bumrah has been named as India's vice-captain for the Test series against New Zealand. PTI")
The BCCI on Friday announced Team India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming three-match Test series against New Zealand, with the absence of pacer Yash Dayal being the only exclusion. Japrit Bumrah has been named the vice-captain in the Rohit Sharma-led side.
Mayank Yadav, Harshit Rana, Nitish Reddy and Prasidh Krishna have been named as the travelling reserves. Pacer Mohammed Shami, who continues to recover from an ankle injury, misses out once again.
Both Nitish and Mayank were excellent in their maiden outing for India during the ongoing three-match T20I series against Bangladesh.
The three Test matches will take place in Bengaluru (16-20 October), Pune (24-28 October) and Mumbai (1-5 November). All three Test matches will be part of the 2023-25 World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.
Bumrah’s captaincy experience
Bumrah has prior experience of leading the side as he wore the captain’s armband during the rescheduled fifth Test match against England in July 2022 at Edgbaston. He also led India in the away T20I series against Ireland in 2023.
Recently, Bumrah also reclaimed his No. 1 spot in the ICC bowlers’ ranking after a stellar effort against Bangladesh.
The 30-year-old has been in riveting form in red-ball cricket, grabbing 42 wickets from eight Tests after his comeback from an injury in August 2023. He has an excellent average of 14.69 in this period. Overall, Bumrah has played 38 Tests, taking 170 wickets, averaging 20.18 with 10 five-wicket hauls.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsYash Dayal not selected due to shoulder injury
Yash Dayal, who was part of the squad for the Bangladesh series, was not selected after the pacer sustained a shoulder injury during Uttar Pradesh’s Ranji Trophy match against Bengal in Lucknow on Friday. It is not yet clear how long Dayal will take to recover from the injury, casting a shadow over his chances of touring Australia.
Other than that, all the players who did duty against Bangladesh recently were retained in the 15-member squad which will be led by Rohit.
India squad for New Zealand Tests: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep.
Travelling Reserves: Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mayank Yadav and Prasidh Krishna.
With inputs from PTI