The BCCI on January 19, 2021, has announced the Indian team squad for the first two Tests of the upcoming four-match series against England at home. The marquee series will see two Tests being played at Chennai and the remaining two being played in Ahmedabad.
This decision to divide the Test series between Chennai and Ahmedabad was taken in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Chennai will host the first two Tests of the Anthony de Mello Trophy from Feb 5-9 and Feb 13-17.
BCCI announces the schedule for England series; matches to be played at just three venues
The BCCI had a fair share of a headache to choose the players for this Test series as Ravindra Jadeja, Hanuma Vihari, Umesh Yadav, and Mohammad Shami were ruled out due to various injuries sustained during the victorious Australia Test series down under.
BCCI has shared the 18-member squad, on Twitter which sees Virat Kohli return as India captain, while Rahane will be the vice-captain, after leading India to a historic 2-1 series win over Australia, their second consecutive Test series win down under.
Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma and Akshar Patel have been included in the squad, while T Natarajan and Prithvi Shaw have been left out from the squad that toured Australia. Hardik returns to the Test squad after few years and it will be interesting to see if he is available to bowl during the series.
Kona Srikar Bharat, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shahbaz Nadeem, Priyank Panchal and Rahul Chahar have been picked as standbyes in the case of injuries. There are also five net bowlers in Ankit Rajpoot, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Warrier, K Gowtham and Saurabh Kumar.
Full squad: Virat Kohli (captain), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul (subject to fitness), Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Akshar Patel, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Siraj.
Standbyes: KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shahbaz Nadeem, Rahul Chahar, Priyank Panchal.
Net bowlers: Ankit Rajpoot, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Warrier, K Gowtham, Saurabh Kumar
