Picture Credit: Twitter
India captain Rohit Sharma is currently in isolation after being diagnosed with COVID-19 ahead of the fifth rescheduled Test against England. The India batter had returned with a positive report in the Rapid Antigen Test conducted on Saturday. With clouds of uncertainty hovering over Sharma’s availability for the fifth Test set to start from Friday (1 July), a picture shared by the Indian captain has brought some relief to the fans.
The 35-year-old shared a picture of himself in quarantine on Monday evening on his Instagram story. In the picture, Sharma has made the ‘thumbs up’ sign and is wearing a broad smile. This happy face of Rohit Sharma indicates that the cricketer is recovering well and may even feature in the fifth Test.
See his picture here:
England announce squad for fifth Test against India
While the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had announced the squad for the fifth Test a few days ago, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced England’s squad on Monday after the Ben Stokes-led team completed a 3-0 whitewash over New Zealand in their home Test series. The ECB retained the squad that played against New Zealand in the 3rd Test.
Notably, India and England will square off in the fifth Test (from India’s 2021 tour to England) from 1 July. India are leading the five-match series 2-1 and have a chance to script history as (if India win) it will be India’s first-ever Test series win in England since 2007. However, the challenger won’t be easy with England in red-hot form at the moment. Rohit Sharma’s presence will be a key for India as the batter had played a pivotal role last year in India’s victories.
England squad: Ben Stokes (Durham) (Captain), James Anderson (Lancashire), Jonathan Bairstow (Yorkshire), Sam Billings (Kent), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Harry Brook (Yorkshire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Ben Foakes (Surrey), Jack Leach (Somerset), Alex Lees (Durham), Craig Overton (Somerset), Jamie Overton (Surrey), Matthew Potts (Durham), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Joe Root (Yorkshire)
India’s Test squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohd Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Mayank Agarwal