India as they aim to seal a spot in the WTC final, slated for June at The Oval. Australia, too, are not yet confirmed of a seat in the WTC final, and for that, they only have to avoid a 4-0 whitewash.

Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja*, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.

After removing KL Rahul as the vice-captain in the white-ball teams, the BCCI selectors could have also not only taken away his vice-captaincy in the Test team, but also they would have been justified in dropping him. The team management now has a big call to make as to who will be Rohit’s opening partner against Australia. Considering that KL Rahul is named as the vice-captain, he will remain in the side, whether as an opener or be shifted in the middle-order we will have to wait for that.

To replace Pant, the BCCI selectors have taken a punt over the likes of Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan in the Test squad while leaving out a couple of other batters/keeper-batters who have been doing well in domestic cricket. One of the thoughts for this selection is that, both SKY and Kishan have exposure of international cricket and the BCCI wouldn’t want to throw in debutants in an important series against Australia

In Bangladesh, Unadkat played only his second Test, after having made his debut back in 2010. Unadkat returned with impressive figures of 2/50 and 1/17; his economy of 2.68 in that Test as a pace was terrific. Although Unadkat might be behind in the pecking order than Shami, Umesh, and Siraj, India might ponder hard over including Unadkat as the second pacer against Australia, whose two main batters are Smith and Labuschagne, and both can be dismissed with lbw and bowled manner.