India will be playing the historic one-off Test against Afghanistan at the Chinnaswamy stadium Stadium, Bangalore on 14th June. BCCI has announced the 15-man squad that will take part in the momentous match. The regular Test captain of India, Virat Kohli will not be playing in the tie, Ajinkya Rahane will be leading the side.
Full Squad against Afghanistan: Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, Wriddhimaan Saha, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami, Hardik Pandya, Ishant Sharma, Shardul Thakur
The notable omissions from the squad which played against South Africa in the Test series earlier this year are Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Virat Kohli. Keeping the upcoming tour to England in mind, Virat has decided to focus on his form in England and will skip the Test match against the debutants.
The fresh inclusion in the Test squad is that of Shardul Thakur and Karun Nair. Mayank Agarwal has missed out despite the great number of runs he scored in the first-class cricket. The 27-year-old top-order batsman scored 2,141 runs in the last domestic season which is the highest runs scored by any batsman in an Indian domestic season. He was the most runs scorer in both 2017/18 Ranji Trophy and 2017/18 Vijay Hazare trophy.
#TeamIndia for one-off Test against Afghanistan announced
Ajinkya (Capt), Shikhar, Vijay, KL Rahul, Pujara, Karun Nair, Saha (wk), Ashwin, Jadeja, Kuldeep, Umesh, Shami, Hardik, Ishant, Shardul #INDvAFG
— BCCI (@BCCI) May 8, 2018
The occasion will officially mark Afghanistan’s entry into the Test arena. After Ireland, they will become the 12th nation to be playing Test cricket.
Cheteshwar Pujara will be returning to India to play the historic Test match. He is currently playing for Yorkshire in county cricket. Since Yorkshire be playing limited overs cricket on June 7, Pujara will have time to return to India. He will return to England to face Hampshire from June 20. Indian pace bowler Ishant Sharma will also be available to play the Test as he is playing for Sussex till 3rd June.
