The Test home season in India will start with two matches against Bangladesh, starting on September 19. The Indian Team will then go on to play five Tests that’s the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia. The new management committee spearheaded by Gautam Gambhir will be keen to identify and iron out the core of the squad for the year.
Duleep Trophy- A Ticket To India’s Test Spot
The Duleep Trophy gets underway on September 5 and the Indian selection committee, will be keenly watching the tournament. There is a lot of potential players who are willing to seal their Test spot- Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant along with Mukesh Kumar and Arshdeep Singh take part in the opening round of the tournament as they look to impress the selectors ahead of squads being announced for the Bangladesh series.
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India will bring in a very strong lineup for their first home Test, with the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Jasprit Bumrah starting, which automatically heats up competition for spots, especially in the middle-order. The same middle-order misfired badly during the series against England last year, when both KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer were ruled out mid-series, which allowed new talents to seize the day.
KL Rahul More Likely To Get Selected
When Kohli and probably Rishabh Pant come back, only one spot will be available for the Test XI and that too, almost certainly the very important No. 5 position. And that’s where the leading contention lies between KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer. Recent performance may tilt the scale in Rahul’s favour with a century and a fifty in his last three Tests, but an out-of-the-world performance in this Duleep Trophy can give Iyer the tailwind needed.
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Iyer has had a rollercoaster 2023-24 season, for whom the highs of a strong performance in the World Cup were followed by an excellent IPL with KKR; it also had question marks over his fitness in the Test series against England and his place in the T20 World Cup squad.
