India vs West Indies: Yashasvi Jaiswal to make debut in 1st Test, Shubman Gill to bat at No 3

India captain Rohit Sharma has confirmed that Yashasvi Jaiswal will be making his India debut in the first Test against West Indies which will start on 12 July in Dominica. Rohit also added that Yashasvi will be opening alongside him while Shubamn Gill will bat at No 3.

“(Shubman) Gill will play at No 3 because he also wants to play at No 3. He had a chat with Rahul (Dravid) bhai that ‘I have played all my cricket at No 3 and No 4, so I can do better for the team if I play at No 3’. It’s good for us also because it allows us to have a left-right combination (at the top). Hopefully, this works for us in the long term. We were desperate for a long time for a left-hander (opener), so let’s hope he performs well for the team and makes the spot his own,” Rohit said on the eve of the match in a video shared by cricket journalist Vimal Kumar on Youtube.

India captain Rohit Sharma also added that India would go into the match with a combination of two spinners and three pacers.

“Looking at the wicket it looks like we will play with two spinners and three seamers. The last time a match took place here in 2017 lots of wickets were taken by spinners. Also having trained here we felt that there’s bounce on offer,” he added.

India’s decision to play two spinners could mean a return for off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin who missed the World Test Championship final against Australia last month. India lost that match by 209 runs.

India are also without senior pacers Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav on the tour. Rohit added that India have no option but to rotate senior pacers with the ODI World Cup scheduled for later this year.

“We have to rotate players unfortunately because we don’t have a regular supply of fast bowlers. A lot of our bowlers are injured currently, so we have to manage whatever bowlers are available. That’s why our experienced bowlers could not come on this tour. But I have confidence in our new bowlers. Jaydev (Unadkat) is not new. He made his debut 10-12 years ago. Mukesh Kumar is coming on the back of consistent performances in domestic cricket. We have to decide our combination. But this is going to be a challenge in Indian cricket as we play a lot of cricket so we need to rotate players and need to keep them fresh for the World Cup,” the captain said.

The two-match Test series against West Indies marks the beginning of the new WTC cycle for India and the skipper is expecting a tough challenge from the hosts.

“Every game is important, whether it’s at the start of a WTC cycle or at the last of it. We have played two WTC finals. We couldn’t achieve what we wanted. This is a new opportunity, we have a new team, a lot of new players have come in and more will come in the future. This will be a new challenge. West Indies are always a good side in their own backyard. I hope we do well in this challenge.”

India’s Test squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Ajinkya Rahane (vc), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini