BCCI announces squad for New Zealand Tests, Jasprit Bumrah appointed as vice-captain

The BCCI announced India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming Test series against New Zealand on Friday. Star pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been named new vice-captain for India’s Test squad for the 3-match series against the Black Caps starting on October 16.

India made just one change to their squad from the recent Test series triumph over Bangladesh. The young pacer Yash Dayal has been dropped after failing to crack the playing XI in the 2 Tests against Bangladesh. Notably, India chose not to replace him with a new face and have named Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Akash Deep as their 3 pacers for the New Zealand series. 

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Veteran pacer Mohammed Shami remained out of the squad as he has not yet fully recovered from his knee injury while the likes of Shreyas Iyer and Abhimanyu Easwaran also failed to find a place in the Indian squad.

India also named 4 travelling reserves for the series. Youngsters Mayank Yadav and Nitish Kumar Reddy who starred in the first 2 Bangladesh T20Is, have been given a place in the reserves. Along with them pacers Harshit Rana and Prasidh Krishna completed the reserve list.

Meanwhile, Jasprit Bumrah’s promotion to vice-captain role came as no surprise as he previously captained the Men in Blue in one Test against England at Edgbaston in 2022.

India’s squad for New Zealand Test series: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep