NEW DELHI: All the speculations surrounding who will lead India in the rescheduled fifth Test against England on Friday have finally come to an end after the Indian cricket board (BCCI) officially announced that pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah will lead the Indian side since regular skipper Rohit Sharma has been ruled out due to Covid-19.
Bumrah will be the first pacer since Kapil Dev to captain India in Test cricket. India lead the five-match series 2-1.
Friday's match should have been played in Manchester last September only to be postponed just hours before the scheduled start because of Covid-19 concerns in the India camp.
"Rohit Sharma, captain, Indian Cricket Team is ruled out of the rescheduled fifth Test against England to be played from Friday. Rohit underwent a RAT Test on Thursday morning and returned a positive result for COVID-19," read a BCCI statement.
"The All-India Senior Selection Committee has named Jasprit Bumrah as captain for the upcoming Test and Rishabh Pant as his deputy," the statement further said.
India’s Test squad: Jasprit Bumrah (Captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant (vice-captain) (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohd Shami, Mohd Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Mayank Agarwal
