The Indian cricket team will have a busy Test schedule as the Men in Blue are set to play ten Test matches in the upcoming four months. The busy schedule starts with the two-match series against Bangladesh from September 19 onwards. Meanwhile, India have a historic milestone in their sights.
The Indian team will take on the Bangla Tigers in the first Test at the spin-friendly MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. They will then travel north to Kanpur for the second game from September 27 onwards. Apart from the World Test Championship points, the Rohit Sharma-led team would be chasing a never-seen-before record in the history of Indian Test cricket.
If India win the first Test against the Bangla Tigers, they will have more wins than losses in Test cricket for the first time in their 92-year-old history in the format. Currently, the Indian team has 178 wins and 178 losses in the Test format from 579 matches. Apart from these, 222 have been drawn games with one tied match. If India will not lose one of the Tests, they will keep this record intact.
In their five-match Test series against England earlier this year, the Men in Blue created history by matching their wins to the losses. After winning the series 4-1, India didn't had more losses than wins in the format.
The Indian Board has named the squad for the first Test against the Bangla Tigers. Rishabh Pant and Virat Kohli make their return. While Kohli missed only the previous series against England due to personal reasons, Pant was out due to his horrific car crash in December 2022.
Notably, Shreyas Iyer is not part of the opener as his place in the team becomes a question mark. Iyer had played two Tests against the Three Lions.
India’s squad for the 1st Test of the Bangladesh Test series:
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.
