Why Is Shubman Gill Not Playing India Vs New Zealand 1st Test?
India Vs New Zealand 1st Test: Rohit Sharma announced India's Playing combination and it did not feature Shubman Gill.
India are locking horns with New Zealand in the first Test against New Zealand at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. While Day 1 was called off without a ball being bowled due to rain, India opted to bat first on Day 2 with India captain Rohit Sharma winning the toss. However, when asked about the combination of his side, Rohit revealed that Shubman Gill was not in the side which meant a place in the side for Sarfaraz Khan.
"[The pitch has] been under the covers for a couple of days and we do understand it will be sticky to start with. Keeping that in mind, we wanted to put runs on the board. Look, it's a tricky one because you lose the entire day and have four days to play. A lot can happen over the four days as well and you want to get the result as much as possible. The last few Tests we played, we played well and we can get confidence from that and the table looks brilliant. From the last Test two changes: Gill misses out, not 100%, so Sarfaraz comes in and Kuldeep in for Akash Deep," Rohit said at the toss.
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Notably, Gill reportedly complained about neck and shoulder pain before the start of the Test match and as a precautionary measure, India have deemed it best to give him a rest. Meanwhile, this will be a chance for Sarfaraz Khan to prove his worth. Sarfaraz is fresh off a double hundred in the Irani Cup match but with Gill not in the side, there is likely to be a change in the batting order with either Virat Kohli or KL Rahul going up at the number 3 place to make space for Sarfaraz in his preferred middle-order position.
Playing 11s:
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma (captain), Sarfaraz Khan, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
New Zealand: Tom Latham (captain), Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell(w), Glenn Phillips, Matt Henry, Tim Southee, Ajaz Patel, William ORourke
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