India’s first choice wicket-keeper in Tests, Wriddhiman Saha might not be able to achieve complete fitness before the Test series in England. Saha had injured his thumb during the IPL 2018 and while it was initially it was expected that he will be attaining complete fitness in four to five weeks, but his recovery didn’t progress as planned and even he was seen sporting a soft plaster last week. Dinesh Karthik, who stepped in for Saha for the one-off Test against Afghanistan, is likely to be continuing the role.
Saha couldn’t also manage to get fit in time for either the four-day ‘unofficial’ Test against England Lions from Monday at Worcester or the four-day warm-up match against Essex, which starts on July 25 in Chelmsford. The team management has been very vocal about players acclimatizing to conditions before taking the field for the senior team and that is the reason some of the top-order batsmen are expected to play in the India ‘A’ game.
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Speaking to CricketNext, a source also revealed that lack of match practice will also leave Saha out of the team for the series starting in Edgbaston from August 1. He said, “Saha’s injury hasn’t healed as per plan and to be fair there isn’t a chance that he would be match-fit when the team takes the field in the first game. Even though he was working on his fitness all this while, he could not keep wickets or bat with the soft plaster on. Some of the Test specialists are already in England and will be a part of the unofficial Test against the England Lions and Saha now doesn’t look like he will make it even for the Essex game.”
The selectors are expected to announce the Test squad after the ongoing ODI series and could even wait for the unofficial Test to get over on July 19 before announcing the squad.
Another selection dilemma will be whether to go ahead and bring back fit-again pacer Mohammed Shami, especially with Jasprit Bumrah set to miss the first Test and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar suffering from back spasms. Shami passed the Yo-Yo test after failing to clear it before the Afghanistan Test.
