India tour of Australia: Test series to begin on December 17 in Adelaide

Rohit Sharma has been included in the Test squad for the Australia series by the BCCI after its latest meeting on Sunday.

India skipper Virat Kohli will only be available for the first Test in Adelaide from December 17-21, and will rush back to India after it, as his wife Anushka Sharma is pregnant and will be giving birth to the couple’s first child. The Test series will end on January 19.

Some of the key updates in the list, besides the addition of Rohit Sharma were the inclusion of Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer T Natarajan in the T20I series instead of the Kolkata Knight Riders spinner Varun Chakravarthy. The spinner has been ruled out due to a shoulder injury.

Also, the injury to wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha, who missed both the play-off matches for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, has led the selectors to add the name of Rajasthan Royals batsman Sanju Samson as an additional wicket-keeper to India’s ODI squad.

Regarding the India pacer Ishant Sharma, who is still recovering from an injury, the release says that he has been undergoing his rehab at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru and will be added to India’s Test squad once he ‘fully recovers and gains sufficient match fitness’.

The only other update is that the young fast bowler and KKR player Kamlesh Nagarkoti will not be able to travel to Australia as he is still working with the medical team on his



bowling workload management, the release says.

Coming back to Rohit Sharma’s fitness, who has now played in the last two matches for the Mumbai Indians in the ongoing IPL 2020, the release says that the batsman has been rested for the ODIs and T20Is in Australia ‘to regain full fitness’ and has been included in India’s Test squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

The revised squads are as below:

Team India T20I squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul (vice-captain and wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, T Natarajan.

Team India ODI squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (vice-captain & wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur, Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper).

Team India Test squad: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin, Mohd. Siraj.