KL Rahul, whose availability for the remaining three matches was subject to fitness, was ruled out of the third Test against England in Rajkot, confirmed the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Monday.
According to a statement by the Board, “Rahul has reached 90% match fitness and is progressing well under the supervision of the BCCI Medical Team.
“He will continue his recovery process at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru to be completely match-fit for the fourth and fifth Test.”
As a result, the men’s selection committee named Devdutt Padikkal as KL Rahul’s replacement for the third Test which starts in Rajkot on Thursday.
The squad is already missing the services of Virat Kohli, who will miss the remaining three Tests due to “personal reasons.”
Meanwhile, Ravindra Jadeja, who sat out the second Test in Visakhapatnam due to a hamstring injury was also subject to match fitness.
In their place, Sarfaraz Khan, Sourabh Kumar and Washington Sundar were all named as replacements, but only Khan and Washington have been named in the squad for the Tests in Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamsala.
The BCCI did not provide official confirmation but Shreyas Iyer was also missing from the squad in the last three Tests. According to Cricinfo, the batter experienced some back spasms post the second Test, but was cleared for selection.
In the absence of several key players for India, the Indian team can be expected to hand some players their debuts in the upcoming Tests.
India’s updated Squad for the third Test: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), KS Bharat (WK), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja*, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Devdutt Padikkal.