The Covid-recovered Ravichandran Ashwin has finally joined India's squad in London ahead of rescheduled fifth Test against England which is scheduled to start from July 1. The veteran India bowler was seen practicing with the Rohit Sharma & Co. in Leicestershire on Thursday.
Ashwin missed the flight with the India Test squad to the UK after testing positive for Covid-19. He was expected to join the team in Leicester before their four-day warm-up game against the county club which is underway from June 23.
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.
The rescheduled fifth Test will act as a decider for the five-Test series that started in July 2021. 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.
KL 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.
Skipper Rohit Sharma 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.
Shubman 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).
