India take on Bangladesh in the first Test encounter at the M Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai starting Thursday. The Rohit Sharma-led side will return to action after more than a month-long break and questions remain over what team composition India will go with in this game. According to a report by Press Trust Of India (PTI), head coach Gautam Gambhir and skipper Rohit Sharma is expected to go with three spinners – Kuldeep Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. That means Axar Patel will miss out of selection. Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj will be the pacers in the encounter.

On the batting front, Pant is expected to make his Test return after a gap of almost two years. Dhruv Jurel, who impressed his debut series against England, will be benched in that case.

Rohit Sharma and Co had another extensive training session in the build up to the first Test against Bangladesh with all 16 squad members turning for practice at the Chepauk here on Monday.

After a day off, the India squad members took part in their third training session since their arrival here last week. The first Test begins on Thursday.

As it is often the case, Virat Kohli was among the first set of batters to hit the nets. In the adjacent net was southpaw Yashasvi Jaiswal as both him and Kohli faced Jasprit Bumrah and home hero R Ashwin. The next set of batters included skipper Rohit, Shubman Gill and Sarfaraz Khan, the last named player arriving here after taking part in the second round Duleep Trophy match in Anantapur. The captain focussed on playing spinners keeping Bangladesh’s slow bowling attack in mind.

Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant and pacer Mohammed Siraj too faced local bowlers and significant amount of throwdowns.

The practice pitch at the main square offered a decent amount of bounce.

India will have two more practice sessions scheduled before the series opener against Bangladesh, who are riding on the confidence of their series sweep in Pakistan.

(With PTI inputs)

India Test newcomer Akash Deep has been given a special welcome by India star batter Virat Kohli. Pacer Akash Deep, who has been picked in India’s squad for the first Test against Bangladesh, took to Instagram to reveal that Kohli had gifted one of his bats ahead of the series. Notably, Akash Deep is not the first player to receive such a gift, with the likes of Rinku Singh and Vijaykumar Vyshak revealing recently that even they had been lucky enough to be gifted so by Kohli.

Posting a picture of one of Kohli’s MRF-sponsored bats, Akash Deep captioned, “Thanq bhaiya (Thank you big brother)” on Instagram.

The pacer is also teammates with Virat Kohli at Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) since 2022, during which the team has reached the playoff stage twice.

Akash Deep made his debut against England in the fourth Test of five earlier in 2024. He made a tremendous impression on debut, running through the England top order in the first innings. He picked three wickets, dismissing Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope.

It remains the only Test of his career.

After showing continued promise in the domestic circuit, Akash Deep has been given another shot in whites by India. With Mohammed Shami still not injured, Deep has been named.

Meanwhile, Kohli will return to red-ball action for the first time since January 2024, when he played against South Africa. That has been Kohli’s only Test match all year, as he chose to miss the home series against England due to the birth of his second child.

Kohli is aiming to become the fourth Indian to reach 9,000 Test runs. The 35-year-old is only 152 runs away from the milestone. He would join Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid in an elite list of Indians to reach the run tally.