After a series-levelling victory in Vizag, the hosts India will be looking to take a lead in the ongoing five-match Test series against England. The third match of the series will be played at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot starting from 15th February. Before that, all eyes are on the announcement of the Indian squad for the last three Tests of the series.
Earlier, Star batter Virat Kohli opted out from the first two Test matches of the series due to personal reasons and Rajat Patidar was given the chance in his place. Having missed out of the playing in Hyderabad Test, Patidar finally got to make his debut for India in Vizag after KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja were also ruled out due to injuries.
Batting in his debut Test match, Patidar showed good intent in the first innings by scoring 32 runs off 78 balls hitting three boundaries. He was looking set to get a big score but ended up getting bowled out to Rehan Ahmed. He was likely to sit out in the third Test as Kohli was expected to return after the first two games.
Now, Kohli is again in doubt for the next two games and there is no update from the selectors for him. There are also a few reports that he will be missing the third and the fourth Test. Looking at this, Patidar, who came as a replacement for Kohli, is again likely to get a chance in the Indian playing XI for the next two games.
Talking about his KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, both players were key performers for India for the first Test, but got ruled out of the second Test due to injuries. After that, the selectors called Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar and Saurabh Kumar as replacements. Now there are also reports that both Rahul and Jadeja are fit and will be back in the squad ahead of the Rajkot Test.
Additionally, Dhruv Jurel is also likely to replace KS Bharat as a wicketkeeper batsman in the playing for the third Test. KS Bharat hasn’t been able to capitalize his chances for the Indian team and failed to score big runs in the first two Tests. So, there is also a possibility that Jurel may finally get a chance to make India debut and Bharat might get ruled out from the remaining Tests of the series.
Along with Bharat, Shreyas Iyer is also likely to be ruled out from the remaining Tests due to his poor performance in the series so far. Iyer hasn’t been able to live up to the expectations of the selectors in the first two games. He scored just 104 runs in four innings at an average of 26.00.
Looking at the current scenario, the Indian team selectors have a tough job of picking up the perfect squad for the next three Test matches. There has also been a huge break between the second and the third Test and the selectors are likely to announce squad for the rest of the series soon.