India made wholesome changes to their squad for the first Test match against Bangladesh on Sunday, September 8. Overall eight players who featured in the team for India's last Test assignment against England failed to make the team and the biggest absent was Shreyas Iyer.
Shreyas made his Test debut in 2021 but has managed to play only 14 matches for India. He was dropped from the playing eleven after the first two Test matches against England earlier this year and since then he has struggled to perform across formats.
The 29-year-old boasts impressive numbers in white-ball cricket but it's hard to defend his Test numbers. The KKR captain enjoyed a sensational start to his red-ball career for India with six fifty-plus scores in first event matches but he failed to register a single fifty in his last 12 innings.
Shreyas was tipped clear favourite to success Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane in India's Test squad but his recent struggles and the arrival of more consistent Sarfaraz Khan make things very hard for a comeback. He did manage to score a fifty in the Duleep Trophy but needs to play domestic red-ball cricket consistently and score big runs to force selectors to consider his name for the Test team.
Shreyas Iyer's Test numbers:
Shreyas has scored 811 runs in 24 Test innings at an average of 36.96 with the help of one hundred and five fifties. He scored a brilliant hundred against New Zealand in his debut innings in December 2021 but that remains his only triple-figure score in Test cricket.
In his last five Test innings, Shreyas scored 108 runs with the highest score of 35 against England in Hyderabad earlier this year.
India squad for the first Test against Bangladesh
Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Yash Dayal.
