Following an amazing domestic season, Chennai Super King’s opening batter Ruturaj Gaikwad has received a maiden call up to the Indian Test Team.
Earlier the batter was named in the standbys for the WTC Final 2023. But has to pull out due to his marriage commitments. Many wondered if the player would ger another chance.
But, he has been once again named in the Indian Test Team, when the squad for the West Indies tour was announced, on Friday, 23rd of June.
Ruturaj Gaikwad receive maiden Indian Test team call-up
Rauturaj Gaikwad has earned a place in the Indian set up for quite a while now. Although he has made a debut in the shortest format his numbers suggest that he deserves to be playing in every format of the game.
Gaikwad, while playing for Maharashtra, has a first class average of 42.19 from 28 games this season. This includes 6 centuries on the part of the batter. And over the time, his technique has been impressing the selectors who have been looking to bring him into the Indian Test set up.
Gaikwad is not the only batter who is receiving a maiden call up. Along with him will be another player from Maharashtra, the state, if not team and his name is Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Everyone known Jaiswal for his amazing blitz from the IPL 2023. But very few know that he too had an amazing domestic season. This season he has an average of 80.21 from 26 innings. And is coming off an amazing knock of 213 and 144 in the Irani Cup game for Rest of India against Madhya Pradesh.
With these two knocks he created history for the highest aggregate score for a batter in Irani Cup game.
Apart from these two stalwarts of IPL, we have another player receiving his maiden call up in the form of Mukesh Kumar. The 30-year-old pace bowler from Bengal has had an impressive time out in the domestic circuit. He clinched 149 wickets in 39 first class games to get a call up for India.
Major Changes in the Indian test team
There was a glee of hope for Indian fans, to witness Shreyas Iyer, Jasprit Bumrah, and KL Rahul in action. But the recent announced squad has left them devastated.
Neither of the player have recovered from the surgeries they had to undergo. And hence won’t be seen in the Indian set up during the West Indies tour of India.
However, another major blow to the older generation of Indian cricket has come in the form of Cheteshwar Pujara, who has been dropped from the team. The veteran was not able to perform well in the WTC Final. He made 27 and 14 respectively in the two innings against Australia. And hence has been dropped from the squad.
Redemption for Ajinkya Rahane
One man’s loss seems to be another’s gain, as Ajinkya Rahane has been appointed as the vice-captain of the team. He had the title against his name as he was dropped in the February month, earlier this year.
He went back to the domestic circuit and played his heart out to earn a call-up for the WTC final in England. In the game he played two magnificent knocks for his side. although the team ended on losing side, his performance stood out.
In other news, Navdeep Saini, and Jaydev Unadkat have also been called up to replace Shami who has been rested and Umesh Yadav who has been dropped.
India’s Test squad: Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane (vc), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KS Bharat (wk), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishan Kishan (wk), Navdeep Saini
