In another injury blow to India's preparations, the left-arm pacer Khaleel Ahmed has reportedly been ruled out of India's squad for Wednesday's upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. Yash Dayal has replaced Khaleel in team India's travelling reserves for the Australia tour starting on November 22 in Perth.
According to a report from the PTI, Khaleel has been sent home due to an unspecified niggle and has been replaced by uncapped left-arm pacer Yash Dayal. India have named a pace-heavy 18-member squad in addition to three fast bowlers in reserves for the five-match Test series.
"It was a like-for-like replacement because the Indian team needs to do a simulation for Mitchell Starc," the BCCI source told PTI. "Dayal was originally supposed to play the A Test but was sent to South Africa. If Khaleel can't bowl then there was no point in keeping him back."
Dayal was part of India's squad that beat the hosts South Africa in the four-match T20I series last week. The RCB pacer didn't play a single game and was directly flown from Johannesburg to Perth after Khaleel developed a niggle.
Meanwhile, earlier last week, India reportedly kept the versatile batter Devdutt Padikkal back in Australia after India A's tour. Padikkal will stay back in Australia as India sweat on the availability of top-order batters Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill for the first series opener in Perth.
Rohit is yet to travel to Australia after the birth of his second child and is tipped to miss the Perth Test. Gill suffered a thrumb injury while fielding during the simulation training games and is all but out of the first match.
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.
