India suffered a big blow before the Rajkot Test against England. Lokesh Rahul has been ruled out of the third match due to a knee injury. His Karnataka teammate Devadut Padikkal has been replaced in the team.
Rahul did not play in the second Test in Visakhapatnam due to a quadriceps injury. He was included in the squad for the last three Tests based on his fitness clearance.
Ravindra Jadeja, who missed the second match with an injury, has also been included in the squad for the last three matches. But whether this all-rounder will return, it cannot be said clearly now.
On the one hand, Virat Kohli is not in this series due to personal reasons. This time Rahul also got knocked out from the next match. India also did not take Shreyas Iyer for the rest of the series. It undoubtedly increased the complexity of the batting line.
Now it remains to be seen whether Padikkal, who was called up to the Test team for the first time in place of Rahul, can sustain Ranji’s performance. He scored 151 and 36 against Tamil Nadu in the fifth round of the Ranji Trophy that ended on Monday. The 23-year-old left-handed batsman has scored 556 runs in six innings at an average of 92.66 this season. In all, he has scored three centuries, the highest score being 193 runs against Punjab.
