The men’s senior selection committee headed by Ajit Agarkar made several changes to the Test squad that went to England as they announced a 15-man squad for the Test series at home against West Indies. In the absence of an injured wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant, 36-year-old all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has been named vice-captain ahead of opener KL Rahul and pace-bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah. When asked about why Jadeja was picked as Shubman Gill’s deputy, Agarkar said that his performances and experience worked in his favour for the leadership role.
“Rishabh Pant is the vice-captain at the moment and a key player. But unfortunately, he hasn’t quite recovered to make this Test series. We are hopeful he will be available for South Africa. Jaddu has been one of top performers with a lot of experience. So that’s essentially the reason,” Agarkar said in a press conference in Dubai.
Rahul and Bumrah’s Test captaincy record -
Jadeja has never captained India in Tests. Even when Gill was off the field on England tour, it was Rahul who took care of fielding and bowling changes. He has had captaincy experience as well. He led in three Tests, winning two and losing one in 2022.
On the other hand, when Gill was named captain, it was said that Bumrah's workload management was the reason why he did not get the role after Rohit Sharma's retirement. Bumrah has led India in three Tests, winning one in Perth last year in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25.
Other options for vice-captaincy -
Apart from Rahul and Bumrah, the other vice-captaincy option was young wicketkeeper-batter Dhruv Jurel. He is currently leading India A against Australia A in the second unofficial Test after Shreyas Iyer requested a six-month break from red-ball cricket from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
India Test squad for West Indies Test series -
Shubman Gill (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja (vc), Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Narayan Jagadeesan (wk), Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Kuldeep Yadav.