India's young opening batsman Shubman Gill is doubtful for the England Test series after sustaining a shin injury.
According to a TOI report, Gill is likely to be flown back home with two shin splints and would not be seen in action during the whole series, starting August 4.
See Also: Wasim Jaffer picks injured opener Shubman Gill's replacement
While it was believed that Gill had injured himself during a training session, the report claims that the shin splints occurred due to the off-field training workload.
It is now certain that the right-hander would sit out for around eight weeks, which means India will need to find a new opening partner for Rohit Sharma.
Team India are travelling with an oversized squad and the natural openers in Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul and Abhimanyu Easwaran (standby player) will be readily available, but the management is said to be keen on availing the services of Prithvi Shaw, who is currently on the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka.
"Here is a batsman in absolute form right now, playing an inconsequential series (in Sri Lanka) whereas he can be in England and the team will have a cushion to fall back on. It's been five days now and the selectors haven't even blinked yet," sources tracking the developments told TOI.
Shaw has been in terrific form lately. After being axed from the national team following the Australia tour, the 21-year-old piled up a staggering 827 runs in 8 innings while playing the Vijay Hazare Trophy for Mumbai. In the suspended 2021 edition of IPL, he played 8 innings, amassing 308 runs at an impressive strike rate of 166.48 with three half-centuries.
The Indian team management reportedly wants Shaw on the tour of England as early as possible as KL Rahul is being seen as a middle-order option.
Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal will start the series as openers but an injury or fitness concern to any of them might force the team to include Easwaran in the XI, an option that the management isn't keen on.
"As against having to fall back on a batsman (Easwaran) who last did his bit in the First-Class circuit more than two seasons ago and not many have seen much of lately, isn't it more sensible to have a batsman (Prithvi) who's in form and the elements to his batting well-documented already? The team knows Prithvi, understands Prithvi. If they think he should be in England, then there's no reason why the BCCI should not be sending him," say those in the know.
Prithvi Shaw will have to serve quarantine if he needs to be available from the first match of the five-Test series against England. The BCCI, thus, needs to make a decision quickly.
(With TOI inputs)
