The Indian cricket team looks set to make three changes to the roster for the 4th Test against England in Manchester, starting Wednesday. While\u00a0Anshul Kamboj\u00a0is leading the race among pacers to replace the injured\u00a0Akash Deep\u00a0in the team, head coach\u00a0Gautam Gambhir\u00a0and skipper\u00a0Shubman Gill\u00a0also need to replace the injured\u00a0Nitish Kumar\u00a0Reddy, who has been ruled out of the series. While Nitish and Akash’s replacements are forced to a large extent, one unforced change is also expected to take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As per a report in the\u00a0Indian Express, B\u00a0Sai Sudharsan\u00a0could make a return to the playing XI, after being dropped from the team, following a poor show in the series opener at Leeds. In that game Sai played at the No. 3 spot while\u00a0Karun Nair\u00a0came out to bat lower in the order. In the second and the third Test, Nair was preferred over Sudharsan for the one-down position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Kamboj is expected to make his Test debut, in place of injured Akash,\u00a0Shardul Thakur\u00a0is likely to be drafted into the team as a replacement for Nitish Reddy for the pace-bowling all-rounder’s role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though India’s nets session on Tuesday was affected by rain, Sudharsan’s inclusion looked quite likely because of the time he still managed to spend in the middle. The Tamil Nadu batter even did shadow practice when the pitch was covered, and observed the greenish-brown areas closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When India skipper Shubman Gill was asked about the possibility of dropping Karun Nair from the Manchester Test, he refused to throw in the towel for the veteran batter. Nair doesn’t have scores to his name, but the management seems not to have given up on him yet. In the three matches so far, the 33-year-old has registered scores of 0, 20, 31, 26, 40, and 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We think Karun is batting well. The first match he didn’t really play at his number (batted at 6). It’s difficult when a player is making a comeback in a series like this, you know. But I don’t think there’s been any issue with his batting. Sometimes it’s also about getting that click, you know. Once you’re able to make your 50, then you’re able to get back into your zone and get some big runs. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened for him so far,” Gill said on Karun in the pre-match press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In such a case, it does become difficult to predict which player Sudharsan would replace, if he is given a slot in the team for the 4th Test. But, considering head coach Gautam Gambhir’s love for all-rounders, Sai isn’t likely to be selected in place of Nitish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hence, Karun might just miss out on a spot in the playing XI. Another option is to add another batter by dropping\u00a0Washington Sundar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
India’s likely playing XI vs England in 4th Test:\u00a0<\/strong>Yashasvi Jaiswal,\u00a0KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill (c),\u00a0Rishabh Pant\u00a0(wk), Sai Sudharsan,\u00a0Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar\/Shardul Thakur,\u00a0Jasprit Bumrah,\u00a0Mohammed Siraj, Anshul Kamboj<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Indian cricket team looks set to make three changes to the roster for the 4th Test against England in Manchester, starting Wednesday. While\u00a0Anshul Kamboj\u00a0is leading the race among pacers to replace the injured\u00a0Akash Deep\u00a0in the team, head coach\u00a0Gautam Gambhir\u00a0and skipper\u00a0Shubman Gill\u00a0also need to replace the injured\u00a0Nitish Kumar\u00a0Reddy, who has been ruled out of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3489,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3487\/revisions\/3489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurubhainews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}