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Ravichandran Ashwin, who missed the flight with the India Test squad to the UK after testing positive for COVID-19, will now reach England in the next couple of days and join the squad, sources in the BCCI have told CricBuzz. He is expected to join the team in Leicester before their four-day warm-up game against the county club which is set to kick off on June 24.
India will be playing England in a one-off Test at the Edgbaston, Birmingham, starting on July 1. This Test will act as a decider for the five-Test series that started in July 2021.
It is learned that Jayant Yadav was kept as a standby should Ashwin fail to recover in time. The Haryana spinner was called to the NCA in Bangalore. However, that option has been ruled out as Ashwin has recovered fully and is expected to fly out in the next 24 hours, most probably on Wednesday (June 24).
Ashwin (35) is one of the most successful spinners for India in the longest-format of the game in recent times. He has 442 wickets from 86 Tests.
India were leading 2-1 and before they could take on England in the fifth Test in Manchester, their contingent was hit with a series of COVID-19 cases and eventually the match was deferred. Both Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the England Cricket Board (ECB) mutually decided to reschedule the fifth Test in 2022, where India were already scheduled to play white-ball fixtures.
Rahul, however, will miss the tour this time because of a groin injury, which had also ruled him out of the series against South Africa. His absence opened the door for Gill to open for India.
Rohit had amassed 368 runs in 4 Tests, including a hundred and two fifties, while Rahul racked up 315 runs, comprising a hundred and a half-century.
Gill had played a crucial role in India's historic Test series win on Australian soil in 2020-21 and will be keen to make a mark in the UK after returning to the squad following last year's series against New Zealand.
It will also be the first time that Rohit will be leading the team in Test cricket overseas.
England, led by Ben Stokes, have been in sensational form, having recently won 2-0 against reigning World Test Championship winners New Zealand.
India's tour of England also comprises three T20Is and as many ODIs, and the visitors will play two warm-up matches against Derbyshire and Northamptonshire before the white-ball series.
Indian players such as Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jedaja, who were not part of the South Africa series, had their first training session in England last week.
India’s squad for the rescheduled fifth Test vs England:
Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Srikar Bharat (wk).
