The Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel have announced the squad for India's upcoming Test tour of England, starting June 20. As on the expected lines, Shubman Gill has been named as the captain of the Test side, with Rishabh Pant named as his deputy. While there were not any surprise picks for the England tour, there were few notable absentees.
The likes of Mohammed Shami and Shreyas Iyer were the ones who missed out on Test selection. To lot many people's surprise, the exclusion of the latter raised more eyebrows than the missing out of the former. Shreyas has been in the purple patch of his life, scoring runs in ODI format, IPL, and Ranji Trophy. He has shown exemplary leadership skills by leading Mumbai to victory in SMAT and taking Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) season to the Playoffs after 10 years.
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Yet, the selectors chose to ignore the PBKS leader and instead opted for going with Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Easwaran.
Also Read:Â IND vs ENG Tests: Shubman Gill Named India's New Test Captain
Mohammed Shami excluded due to indifferent form, & fitness
Speaking about Mohammed Shami, the veteran pacer was excluded due to his poor form and fitness. In the ongoing IPL 2025 season, playing for SRH, the 35-year-old picked up only six wickets in nine games at an economy rate of over 10 runs per over. With Tests coming back to back, selectors decided to take the risk of not taking Shami.
Jasprit Bumrah will lead the pace attack, which also sees Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Shardul Thakur & Arshdeep Singh.
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India Test Squad For England Series
Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (wk/vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
