Karun Nair, Abhimanyu Easwaran dropped for India-West Indies Tests; Nitish Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal return

India's national selectors on Thursday (September 25) named the 15-member squad for the upcoming Test series at home against West Indies. The two-match series begins on 2nd October in Ahmedabad with the second Test in Delhi from 10th October. Shubman Gill, expectedly, continues as captain of the Test side with Ravindra Jadeja as his deputy in the absence of Rishabh Pant who continues to be injured. Meanwhile, there are two big changes to the squad that played in England.

Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Easwaran have been left out for the West Indies series while Nitish Reddy and Devdutt Padikkal are back in the squad after recovering from their respective injuries. Nair had an underwhelming campaign in England, tallying 205 runs from eight innings at a disappointing average of 25. He did get starts but wasn't able to convert them into significant scores. The fact that the series was mostly played on good batting tracks meant that he had to make big runs but the Karnataka batter wasn't able to do so. With this axing, it could well be the end of the road for Karun in the longest format.

Meanwhile, Easwaran will be gutted at having missed out without playing a single Test match in England. This has been the story of his career so far - often on the sidelines before being dropped without playing a game. Considered one of the best batters in India's domestic circuit, Easwaran's axing does come as a surprise, because this series could have been the ideal platform for the team management to blood him into national colours. Chairman of selectors, Ajit Agarkar clarified his stance on Easwaran's exclusion from the 15-member squad.

"When you travel you take a third opener, here you get an extra spin option in Axar and can only pick 15. KL & Jaiswal haven't done too bad, if we need him we can fly him out," said Agarkar at the press conference after announcing the squad.

Agarkar also admitted that one tough series wasn't the ideal yardstick to judge Nair's credentials but the extreme competition levels for places in the Indian team meant that the 33-year-old had to be excluded. With age also not quite on Nair's side, it isn't surprising that he made way for another Karnataka batter in the form of the 25-year-old Padikkal.

"We expected more from Karun Nair, can't be just one innings. Padikkal offers more. We would like to give 15-20 chances to everyone but it is not possible in these circumstances."

Reddy, meanwhile, has recovered fully from the knee injury that forced him out of the England tour after the second Test at Lord's. While India lost that match, the all-rounder seemed to be getting into his groove with both bat and ball before injuring himself. With India relying on spin overdose at home, Reddy is likely to feature in the XI as he could also be one of the seam options if required.

Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj have both been named for the series, putting to rest all the talk about them being rested for workload management purposes. However, it is unlikely that both of them will play in the XI and India might possibly rotate them in the two Tests.

Squad: Shubman Gill (c), Ravindra Jadeja (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal, Dhruv Jurel (wk), N. Jagadeesan (wk), Nitish Reddy, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.