Top News

New Delhi: Indias cricket team has begun a period of rebuilding appointing Shubman Gill as captain and Rishabh Pant as his vice-captain for a five-Test series in England. This follows the retirements of key players Rohit Sharma Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin a significant shift acknowledged by chief selector Ajit Agarkar. The teams last Test match without this trio was during their 2011 tour of England. When guys like that retire always big holes to fill. Ashwin also retired. Those three have been stalwarts. Always difficult. One way of looking at it is opportunity for someone else. Had conversations with both of them. Virat reached out early April seen him give 200% on every ball he plays even when hes not batting or on the field. Felt hed given everything he had if he cant keep up to the standards it was time for him. Its come from him. Have to respect that. Theyve earned that respect. It is a new WTC cycle you are looking at whole lot of scenarios. All we need to do is show them respect and move on. It is a big job and big transition. We are all confident that Gill is the guy to take us forward. We are all very hopeful said Agarkar in the press conference at the BCCI HQ on Saturday. After a seven-year absence Karun Nairs strong domestic performances earned him a Test recall. Agarkar supports Nairs selection over Sarfaraz Khan and expects him to perform well in England. Sometimes you just have to make good decisions. Sarfaraz I know he got a 100 in the first Test (vs New Zealand) and then didnt get runs. Sometimes its decisions the team management takes. Whether its fair on somebody or unfair on someone those are the choices that you make in the best interest of the team Agarkar said. At the moment we felt Karun has put up heaps of runs over the last couple of seasons. Hes played a little bit of Test cricket early in his career has played a bit of county cricket. We feel that hes batting well enough. Also now with Virat not there clearly lacking a little bit of experience in the batting. Jaiswal is touring [England] for the first time. I know Gill has played one Test match [there]. Its only KL and Pant who have played a series there before. So we felt Nairs experience could help. Sometimes it is going to be unfair on somebody else but eventually youve got to make choices. Arshdeep Singh a left-arm pacer has received his first Test call-up due to Mohammed Shamis injury. Both Arshdeep and Karun Nair have prior experience playing county cricket with Kent and Northamptonshire respectively. Hes a quality bowler and has had a taste of county as well. he plays domestic when he can. A tall guy can bowl with the new ball has body of work in red-ball cricket and in recent form in the last couple of years. Bumrah unlikely to play all five Tests we needed a bit of variety. Agarkar expects Shardul Thakur and Nitish Kumar Reddy the teams seam-bowling all-rounders to perform well in England. Shardul a bowling allrounder sometimes you need a player like that depending on team balance. hes going on the A tour as well. Nitish is a batting allrounder at this point hopefully his bowling will come along as well. Agarkar stated that a place for Shreyas Iyer in the Test team is currently unavailable. Shreyas had a good one-day series played well in domestic as well but right now theres no room in Test cricket.