Former India player Aakash Chopra has questioned when speedster Mohammad Shami would be ready for Test cricket if he wasn’t fit enough to be picked for the upcoming Test series against England. He added that the SRH seamer has also not been part of the franchise’s playing XI in their last few games of IPL 2025 as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “Mohammad Shami is not there. That’s another big news. He had an MRI done, and his workload hasn’t been built as required. The selectors and team are not convinced that he is ready for Test cricket. If Mohammad Shami is still not ready for Test cricket, when will he be? Cricket is moving slightly ahead of him. The SunRisers Hyderabad are not playing him and he is not part of the Indian Test team. So, he is falling behind a little. However, we had anticipated that this would happen.”

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Reflecting on the pacers picked, Aakash Chopra added that Arshdeep Singh has earned his maiden Test call-up as well.

“Arshdeep Singh is getting a chance for the first time. Of course, he has played first-class cricket and played county cricket as well. He has been included as they would need a left-armer in Test cricket. If he has been included, Harshit Rana has gone out. If you compare it with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Harshit Rana was part of that team. In fact, he even played before Akash Deep and Prasidh Krishna, but he is now not part of this team. So that’s a big change, Arshdeep is in and Harshit Rana is out,” Aakash Chopra concluded.