The BCCI named a big squad for India's all-important Australia Test series on Friday. India shuffled their current Test squad by dropping spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel and recalled the fast bowler Prasidh Krishna into their 18-member squad.
As expected, Mohammed Shami was not considered as the veteran spinner lacks match fitness for the five-match Test series starting on November 22. India also included uncapped Abhimanyu Easwaran and Harshit Rana but the main talking point of inclusion of Nitish Reddy.
Nitish, the 21-year-old batting all-rounder, claimed the Emerging Player of the Tournament award in the IPL 2024 and made headlines with his batting performances in the recent T20Is against Bangladesh. Nitsh's inclusion in the red-ball cricket gives India a crucial pace all-rounder option which they are lacking in the last couple of years.
Nitish is expected to make his Test debut on the Australia tour and might cement his place in the team with no direct competition for the pace all-rounder role.
Jasprit Bumrah will be leading India's fast bowling attack with Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, and Yash Thakur. It will be an interesting and positive headache for the management to pick their preferred playing eleven but Prasidh and Akash are likely to partner with Bumrah in the three-man pace attack with Nitish providing the fourth option.
In spin, only one of Ravichandran Ashwin, Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja is likely to make the playing XI for the majority of matches in Australia. There will be minium help for the spinners on Australia's green surfaces so the management might tempt to use either Jadeja or Sundar who can offer more with a bat than legendary Ashwin.
India's likely playing XI for Australia Test series:
Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Nitish Reddy, Washington Sundar, Akash Deep, Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna.
India’s squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy:
Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed.
