The Indian team will soon prepare for its tour to West Indies which starts from August 3 with the first two T20I matches to be played in Florida, USA. The ODI series will begin from August 8 in Guyana and the 2-Test series between the two sides will be played from August 22.
The BCCI recently announced the squad for the Test series, which will be played under the inaugural ICC Championship. The squad sees two wicketkeepers being selected in Rishabh Pant and Wriddhiman Saha. Saha makes his long-awaited return to the Indian fold, after being out of action for over one year with finger and shoulder injuries. He last played a Test against South Africa in 2018 and in his absence, India tried Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant as keepers, which Pant managing to cement his place with a century each against England and Australia.
Chief selector MSK Prasad revealed that Andhra Pradesh’s young keeper KS Bharat was in contention for the second wicketkeeper position for the West Indies tour. In his last 11 appearances for India A, Andhra wicket-keeper batsman Bharat has scored 686 runs with three centuries and two half-centuries held 41 catches and effected six stumpings. He has scored three centuries against Australia-A (106 at Alur), England Lions (142 at Wayanad) and Sri Lanka-A (117 at Hubli).
“We have taken India A performances into consideration. The performances of Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey have been phenomenal and so has been Navdeep Saini. Also, in the longer format, it was KS Bharat who was very close to being selected,” Prasad said at the press conference.
However, the return of Saha to the fold meant that he got the preference over Bharat and was included in the team. “It is a norm that when a senior or established player makes a comeback from injury, he is given a chance in the team. So that’s how we have given a comeback opportunity to Wriddhiman Saha. But, I can tell with the stellar performances that KS Bharat has been doing in India A - he has scored three centuries and taken almost 50 dismissals - he was very close to making the cut,” he added.
(Inputs from Hindustan Times)
