KL Rahul, an Indian middle-order batsman, will not play in the third Test match against England in Rajkot. The team has named Devdutt Padikkal as his replacement.
Jasprit Bumrah and Rahul were scheduled to report to the Indian squad in Rajkot on Monday. However, as far as Cricbuzz is aware, Rahul is still a student at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, so his exclusion from the team is primarily a precaution. Rahul had been named in the squad for the previous three Tests, subject to fitness, but was forced to miss the Visakhapatnam Test due to a right quadriceps injury.
Rahul will fly to Ranchi with the Indian team for the fourth Test after likely rejoining the team in Rajkot.
Later, BCCI verified in a press statement that Rahul had reached 90% match fitness and was improving well under the care of the BCCI Medical Team. “He will continue his recovery process at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru to be completely match-fit for the fourth and fifth Test.”
Padikkal has a strong first-class season and is called up for the first time to the Test squad. The 23-year-old batsman for Karnataka, who bats third for his state team, is coming off a 151-run innings he played a few days ago against Tamil Nadu. Along with his opening-inning 105 against the England Lions in the second unofficial Test, this was his third century in the ongoing Ranji Trophy.
India will have a wide range of new faces to choose from in Rajkot after deciding to overlook the ineffective Shreyas Iyer and seasoned Cheteshwar Pujara. The selectors remain confident in Sarfaraz Khan, who is expected to make his debut, and Rajat Patidar, who debuted in Visakhapatnam.
The following players are in the squad for the third test: Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Axar Patel, R Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, and Devdutt Padikkal.