Reports: Injured KL Rahul doubtful for one-off Test match against England

KL Rahul’s participation in the one-off Test match against England next month seems to be in jeopardy amid the batter’s groin injury, which also ruled him out of the ongoing five-match T20I series against South Africa where the Men in Blue are already trailing 0-2.

With key players Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Jasprit Bumrah being rested as a part of their workload management, Rahul was handed over the captaincy reins for the T20I series. However, the injury that he suffered on the eve of this bilateral series meant that wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was handed over the captaincy duties.

KL Rahul undergoing rehabilitation at NCA

Meanwhile, Rahul is currently undergoing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru and as of now, it is unclear as to how long will the Karnataka cricketer be out of on-field action.

According to reports in Cricbuzz, “it is learnt that diagnosis of his complaint is not complete yet. Sources have indicated that his participation in the England series is doubtful but could not clarify if he will have to skip the white ball games as well.”

Meanwhile, it has also been learnt that that the Indian team will fly off for England in two groups. “The first batch of the Indian team will fly to England on Friday (June 16) and another batch, including coach Rahul Dravid, Pant and Shreyas Iyer, on June 20,” stated the report further.

The one-off Test match will be played from July 1 to 5. This is the rescheduled fifth and final Test match which was postponed to a later date due to COVID-19 cases in the Indian camp. This game was originally scheduled to be played in Manchester in September last year. Notably, India lead the inconclusive series 2-1.

At the same time, it has also been reported that the selection committee might not name a replacement player for KL Rahul with three openers already included in the officially announced 17-member squad. Apart from Rahul, skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill are the other openers.

Here’s the Indian squad for the one-off Test match against England: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc) Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohd Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Prasidh Krishna