Natarajan, Thakur in for Umesh, Shami; Rohit named new deputy

The Indian cricket board (BCCI) on Friday announced pace bowler Thangarasu Natarajan as a replacement for Umesh Yadav in the India squad for the last two Test matches against Australia to be played in Sydney and Brisbane.

Rohit Sharma, who spent his second consecutive day training at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday as the rest of the Indian team unwound, has been picked as vice-captain of the Indian team for the remaining Tests.

BCCI also added that Shardul Thakur had been added to the squad in place of Mohammed Shami, who was hit on his bowling arm during the first Test in Adelaide.

Umesh had sustained a strain in his left calf muscle on the third day of the second Test in Melbourne early in Australia’s second innings. He limped off the field. Both Shami and Umesh Yadav will head to the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru for further rehabilitation of their injuries,” added the statement. Both Thakur and Natarajan are with the India squad as net bowlers.

In a statement that announced Natarajan and Thakur as replacements for Yadav and Shami, the BCCI also named Rohit as Ajinkya Rahane’s deputy.

Rahane is the stand-in captain in place of regular skipper Virat Kohli who has returned to attend the birth of his child.

Rohit, who has not played any competitive cricket since leading Mumbai Indians to title victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in early November, had arrived in Australia in mid-December and had been under quarantine for the past two weeks in Sydney. He had been recuperating in India from a hamstring injury sustained during the IPL.

Rohit has not played a Test match since November last year when he featured in India’s first pink-ball Test, against Bangladesh. He had got permanently slotted at the top of the batting order but injury forced him to miss the two-Test series against New Zealand where Prithvi Shaw opened.

Rohit could now open with Shubman Gill in the third Test in place of out-of-form Mayank Agarwal although Ravi Shastri had said this week that they will talk to him and see if he is fit enough.

“We will have a chat with him to see where he is placed physically because he has been quarantined for a couple of weeks. We will have to see now how he feels before we take the call,” Shastri had told media after the second Test which India won.

LOOMING COVID THREAT: Meanwhile, the Test starting on Jan.7 at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), has come under threat after 10 cases of Covid-19 emerged on Dec.31 in Sydney’s vicinity, taking the total number of positive cases to 170 over the last two weeks.

According to a report in Channel 9, there have been calls to play the third Test at the SCG without spectators inside the stadium.

“The Blue Mountain and Illawarra, a broad area is being affected by these outbreaks,” said a report on Nine News Sydney.

The areas of Berala and Smithfield, which are just 30-odd kilometres from the SCG have been put on alert.  There have already been calls to ban spectators in the Test, as well as making mask wearing mandatory.

OZ PLANS TO PUT INDIAN BOWLING UNDER PRESSURE: Meanwhile, Australia No. 3 Marnus Labuschagne, who praised the Indian bowlers for discipline and holding straight lines to throttle scoring, says that Australian batsmen need to come up with ways of attacking the Indian bowling especially by targeting certain bowlers. Both Labuschagne and Steve Smith, the mainstays of Australian batting, have struggled to get going in the series with the latter aggregating just 10 in four innings.

“I think they have been very disciplined in their bowling and their plans with both spin and pace. I think they have really held that straight line. That made us face a lot of balls, striking at about two runs an over. It is for us to make sure that there are going to be small opportunities for us to showing intent and attacking them,” said Labuschagne while speaking to the media.

Labuschagne added that the field placements with heavy emphasis on the leg-side and bringing fielders in play for catches has worked well for the Indians but he added that the Aussies will discover plans to put them under pressure.

“For us it is making sure we continue to find ways to score runs. Like I said it doesn’t have to be pretty. We just have to keep grinding away. If we get in, we got to make sure we get big scores,” added Labuschagne.

The right-handed South Africa-born batsman said the plan will be to target certain bowlers though he refused to reveal specific plans.

India squad for the last two Tests: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Thangarasu Natarajan