Courtesy: BCCI
Ahead of India’s five-match Test series in England, a pre-departure press conference was held in Mumbai, attended by newly appointed Test captain Shubman Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir. When the question around the exit of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from the Test team due to their sudden retirement was posed to the 25-year-old, he remarked that it will be very difficult to fill their space in the Indian set up, while hailing them for their contributions over the years.
Notably, after a difficult time for the Indian cricket team down under last winter, losing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) Test series 3-1(5), the scrutiny on Virat Kohli and then captain Rohit Sharma was massive due to their poor performances on tour. In the midst of the IPL 2025, Rohit Sharma was followed by Virat Kohli in announcing their retirements from Test cricket, closing a great chapter for not only themselves, but also the Indian cricket team in the longest format of the game.
Indian selectors picked exprienced Karun Nair in Test squad for England tour
During the pre-departure press conference ahead of England Test tour, Shubman Gill was appreciative of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, the veterans of Indian cricket, who are now available to play for the national team in just ODI cricket. He was quoted as saying, as per Indian Express, “Pressure is always there in every tour. Definitely, two very experienced players who played for such a long time and won so many times, very difficult to fill their space. But it is not a different kind of pressure, all of us players are used to it.”
With the exit of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from the Indian Test team, just after Ravichandran Ashwin retired down under last winter, the transition is well and truly here for them. The Indian selectors have brought back the experienced Karun Nair in the Test squad for the tour to England after he had an exemplary domestic season for Vidarbha, especially in the Ranji Trophy 2024-25, scoring a truckload of runs to earn a spot in the national side.
Below is the Indian Test squad for England tour:
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
