India’s senior spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin has talked about India’s two batters who form the core of the Test squad.
These are Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant.
In just 5 days’ time, India is going to host Australia for another Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
The first game is starting on the 9th of February at Nagpur and the squad for the first two games has been announced by the BCCI.
During the last couple of years, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant have been the most important players of the Indian Test squad.
Now, both of these players are not going to be available for India in the first Test.
As regards Pant, he met with a serious accident in December last year and will take a long time to recover from his injuries.
Apart from this, Shreyas is also not going to play in the first Test because he has not fully recovered from the back issue that has kept him out of cricket for some time now.
Looking back, the last three Border-Gavaskar Trophies have been won by India.
India has the home advantage this time but still, it will be a tough battle to win the series.
Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s premier spinner in Test cricket has said that both Shreyas and Pant are the ‘backbone’ of the Test squad.
He now feels that the absence of both of these players will be felt during the first Test at Nagpur.
Ashwin speaks on Pant and Iyer on his YouTube channel
Says Ashwin,
Shreyas Iyer has been India’s go-to Test batter alongside Rishabh Pant in the last couple of years. That in itself is a lesser compliment for him. He has been the backbone of this batting order. He is going to be a crucial player for India in Pant’s absence.
Shreyas is a part of the Kolkata Knight Riders as he is their skipper.
For India, Shreyas was the top scorer last year in the ODI format where he amassed 724 runs and also made it to the ODI Team of the Year alongside teammate Mohammad Siraj.
India and everyone would be hoping that Shreyas recovers in time before the first Test.
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