Shami ignored again, star batter returns: Key takeaways from India's Test squad selection

Key takeaways from India's squad selection [Source; AFP Photo]

On Wednesday, the Indian selectors revealed the Test squad for the upcoming series against the reigning WTC champions, South Africa. The core players were retained by the management as the Indian team aims to win their second successive home series under the leadership of Shubman Gill.

The team also made quite a few surprising selection calls, and in this piece, we take a look at the key takeaways from India’s Test squad selection for the South Africa series.

1) End of the road for Mohammed Shami?

It was almost 2.5 years ago when Mohammed Shami last played a Test match for India, and since then, he has been out of the red-ball side. Shami has had a long history of injuries and recently he participated in the Ranji Trophy matches to prove his fitness.

The pacer did extremely well in the couple of matches that he played, as he took a fifer against Gujarat to seal the win for his team, Bengal. However, despite a strong showing, the selectors once again ignored him for the Test series vs South Africa.

Shami, 35, is at the twilight of his career, and perhaps the Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel are looking at the future when picking up the squad, and this could be the end of the road for the Indian pacer, not only in Tests, but in white-ball cricket as well.

2) Akash Deep back in the side

Akash Deep missed the West Indies Test series due to an injury, but the Bengal pacer was picked in the squad against South Africa as India hopes that the pacer could deliver the goods, just like he did vs England.

(Akash Deep vs England)

• In his first England tour, Akash Deep played three matches before getting injured. He scalped 13 wickets and the highlight was his match-winning 10-wicket haul at Edgbaston to seal India’s win.
• India would hope that he could replicate the same performance against the South Africans, if he gets a chance to play over Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj.

3) Pant back after long injury layoff

India’s star batter, Rishabh Pant suffered a horrific injury during the England tour and the batter missed a substantial amount of games after the tour. He worked hard on his recovery as the batter played the India A matches vs South Africa A and was picked for the red-ball series.

His comeback is crucial for India as Pant is India’s best wicket-keeper batter in India and his aggressive template helps the other batters to take their time in the middle. The injury was serious, and it would be interesting to see how Pant performs on his comeback.

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