India have handed the Test debut cap to Devdutt Padikkal for the fifth and final Test of the ongoing five-match series against England. Padikkal received his Test cap from veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin ahead of the toss at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium in Dharamsala on Thursday (March 7).
Interstingly, Padikkal has been included in the playing XI due to an injury to Rajat Patidar. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) took to 'X' to inform that Patidar took a blow on his left ankle during a practice session on March 6 (Wednesday) and pulled up sore on Thursday morning.
Padikkal has shown a lot of promise in his young first-class career. The southpaw has played 31 first-class games in his career and aggregated 2227 runs thus far. He averages 44.54 with the willow in hand and has already scored six tons and 12 half-centuries.
Notably, Padikkal's inclusion in the XI is one of the two significant changes that India have made for the final Test match of the series. Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has also come back into the playing XI at the expense of Akash Deep.
Bumrah was rested for the fourth Test of the series in Ranchi as a part of his workload management and it paved the way for Akash to make his Test debut for India. Akash was impressive on his debut as he picked up the big scalps of Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope in the first innings.
India's playing XI:
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Devdutt Padikkal, Ravindra Jadeja, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah
England's playing XI:
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Ben Stokes (c), Jonny Bairstow, Ben Foakes (wk), Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, Mark Wood, James Anderson
