India take on Bangladesh in the first Test encounter at the M Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai starting Thursday. The Rohit Sharma-led side will return to action after more than a month-long break and questions remain over what team composition India will go with in this game. According to a report by Press Trust Of India (PTI), head coach Gautam Gambhir and skipper Rohit Sharma is expected to go with three spinners – Kuldeep Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. That means Axar Patel will miss out of selection. Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj will be the pacers in the encounter.
On the batting front, Pant is expected to make his Test return after a gap of almost two years. Dhruv Jurel, who impressed his debut series against England, will be benched in that case.
Rohit Sharma and Co had another extensive training session in the build up to the first Test against Bangladesh with all 16 squad members turning for practice at the Chepauk here on Monday.
After a day off, the India squad members took part in their third training session since their arrival here last week. The first Test begins on Thursday.
As it is often the case, Virat Kohli was among the first set of batters to hit the nets. In the adjacent net was southpaw Yashasvi Jaiswal as both him and Kohli faced Jasprit Bumrah and home hero R Ashwin. The next set of batters included skipper Rohit, Shubman Gill and Sarfaraz Khan, the last named player arriving here after taking part in the second round Duleep Trophy match in Anantapur. The captain focussed on playing spinners keeping Bangladesh’s slow bowling attack in mind.
Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant and pacer Mohammed Siraj too faced local bowlers and significant amount of throwdowns.
The practice pitch at the main square offered a decent amount of bounce.
India will have two more practice sessions scheduled before the series opener against Bangladesh, who are riding on the confidence of their series sweep in Pakistan.
(With PTI inputs)
