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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Saturday, May 24 announced 18-member squad for the upcoming five-match Test series against England. With that, they also named young Indian opener, Shubman Gill as the new Test captain, following Rohit Sharma’s retirement from the longest format. Apart from this, the squad also saw some surprise inclusions as well as shocking omissions.
Among the surprise inclusions, Karun Nair returned for Indian cricket after eight-long years, whereas Mohammed Shami, Shreyas Iyer and Sarfaraz Khan’s absence was a shocking move. Although, Shami’s fitness was the major reason behind his snubbing, Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar stated that they were looking for experience and thus Khan could not find himself in the squad.
Fitness issues led BCCI to snub Sarfaraz Khan; feels Cheteshwar Pujara
Speaking in an interaction with Hindustan Times, one of the finest Test cricketers of India, Cheteshwar Pujara opined that Sarfaraz Khan was not in the Indian squad as he has been successful in Asia. He opined that the selectors felt that he might not be as successful in overseas conditions. Pujara also added that his fitness issues could also have been a reason.
"The reason he is not in the squad, I feel, is he has been very successful in the Asian conditions or in India. The management feels that he may not be as successful in Australia or in England. And there were some fitness issues in the past. I don't know about his current fitness. But he has been working hard on his fitness also. So, at this stage, I feel it's a bit unfortunate. But at the same time, someone like Karun Nair, who has performed really well in domestic cricket, deserved an opportunity," Pujara said, as quoted by Times Now.
Speaking at the press conference during the squad announcement, when questioned about Sarfaraz Khan’s absence, Chairman of Selectors, Ajit Agarkar said, “Sarfaraz, I know he got a 100 in the first Test and then didn’t get runs. At the moment, Karun has scored heaps of runs in domestic, has played a bit of Test cricket, played a bit of county cricket. With Virat not there, clearly we’re lacking a bit of experience. We felt his experience could help.”
India’s squad for five-match Test series against England
Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav
