Washington Sundar, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Rana and Nitish picked for Border-Gavaskar Trophy

MUMBAI: India has named three uncapped players - opener Abhimanyu Easwaran, fast bowler Harshit Rana and allrounder Nitish Kumar Reddy - in its squad of 18 for the five-Test tour of Australia starting on November 22.

Mohammed Shami, who hasn’t regained full fitness since his ankle surgery earlier this year, was not included while Kuldeep Yadav was also not available for selection because of a “chronic left groin issue”. Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini and Khaleel Ahmed are part of the travelling reserves.

Rohit Sharma leads the squad with Bumrah as his vice-captain. But with Rohit likely to miss one of the first two Tests for personal reasons, it’s likely that Abhimanyu, 29, will make his Test debut on the tour. He has been part of India’s Test squad previously - in Bangladesh in 2022 - and he has been in superb form this domestic season, scoring two hundreds in the Duleep Trophy, another century in the Irani Trophy, and beginning the Ranji Trophy season with a ton for Bengal. The squad includes three spin allrounders R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, who marked his return to the Test team after more than three years with a ten-wicket haul against New Zealand in Pune. Reddy, 21, is the only seam-bowling allrounder in the squad. He made his T20I debut for India against Bangladesh earlier this month and is currently a reserve player in India’s Test squad for the home series against New Zealand. He is seen by India’s selectors as a promising allrounder who could improve with more experience and exposure.

Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh and Rana are the other fast bowlers in squad apart from Bumrah. Prasidh, who has played two Tests previously, has just started playing again after recovering from a serious back injury, while 22-year-old Rana has played only nine first-class matches. Rana, who represents Delhi, took two four-wicket hauls for India D in the Duleep Trophy in September and has 36 wickets at an average of 24.75 in first-class cricket. With Khaleel in the reserves and no Yash Dayal, India doesn’t have a left-arm quick in the main squad.

India begins its tour with a warm-up match against India A in Perth from November 15 to 17, after which it plays the first Test against Australia at Perth Stadium from November 22 to 26.

India’s squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed

India’s squad for 4 T20Is against South Africa: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (WK), Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Avesh Khan, Yash Dayal