On the eve of the first Test between West Indies and India to be played at Windsor Park in Dominica from July 12 onwards, visiting captain Rohit Sharma has confirmed that young batter Yashasvi Jaiswal will make his Test debut for India.
Not only that, the left-hander from Mumbai will also open the innings for India alongside Rohit Sharma, while Shubman Gill will drop one place down to no.3 spot.
Jaiswal was part of the Indian team as one of the standby players during the World Test Championship (WTC 2023) final against Australia but didn’t get the chance to play, however, after a stellar IPL 2023 campaign with Rajasthan Royals, the youngster is set to make his debut for India against West Indies.
“(Shubman) Gill will play at No 3 because he also wants to play at No 3. He had a chat with Rahul (Dravid) bhai that ‘I have played all my cricket at No 3 and No 4, so I can do well for the team if I play at No 3’. It’s good for us also because it allows us to have a left-right combination (in the opening).
Hopefully, this works for us in the long term. We were desperate for a long time for a left-hander (opener), so let’s hope he (Yashasvi Jaiswal) performs well for the team and makes the spot his own,” Rohit said in a presser and shared by cricket journalist Vimal Kumar on YouTube.
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He received his maiden India team call-up alongside Ruturaj Gaikwad and Jaiswal got the nod ahead of the Maharashtra batter.
Rohit Sharma also confirmed that India will be playing with 2 spinners against West Indies. India has options of Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, and Akshar Patel to choose from.
“Looking at the wickets it looks like we will play with two spinners and three seamers. The last match here took place in 2017 lots of wickets were taken by spinners. Also having trained here we felt that there’s bounce on offer,” he added.
Apart from scoring 625 runs in IPL 2023 for Rajasthan Royals, including one century and the fastest-ever IPL fifty, the left-hander also hammered a hundred in Duleep Trophy and a hundred in Irani Trophy.
Team India Test squad for West Indies tour 2023:
Rohit Sharma (C), Ajinkya Rahane (VC), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KS Bharat (WK), Ishan Kishan (WK), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Akshar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini
