“Come 15th morning, whether we are batting first, or whether we are bowling first, we’re absolutely ready with every answer.” That was Gautam Gambhir’s message to the Indian Test squad as training began on Wednesday at the NCC ground in Colombo, in a video shared by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
“Guys, we know what’s in front of us. We know what we are playing for. We can do the volume, we can push our limits, we can tick all the boxes,” the head coach said. “So make sure we tick all the boxes from now on.”
Why the series matters
The two Tests against Sri Lanka count towards the 2025-27 World Test Championship. India sit fifth in the table on a points percentage of 48.150, one place above Sri Lanka, who are sixth on 41.67. The first Test starts in Galle on August 15. The second follows at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club from August 23 to 27.
First, a three-day warm-up against a Sri Lanka XI, from August 7 to 9. It is the only taste of local conditions the side will get, and it comes after India’s recent trouble against good spin bowling. Captain Shubman Gill, KL Rahul and several other frontline batters had already started working on their play against spin before leaving for Sri Lanka. India have also brought in four domestic spinners as net bowlers: Harsh Dubey, Shivang Kumar, Tanush Kotian and Vipraj Nigam.
Experience on the island is thin. Only Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav have played Tests in Sri Lanka before. For most of the squad it will be their first red-ball cricket there.
New faces, and missing ones
Gambhir used the same meeting to welcome Saransh Jain, Auqib Nabi and the new fielding coach, Subhadeep Ghosh. He told Nabi: “You had a phenomenal last season, and made J&K win the Ranji Trophy, which is a great achievement.” Of Ghosh he said he had “worked with so many teams for so many years” and that his passion and commitment would carry the team forward.
The squad arrives short-handed. Jasprit Bumrah is out after failing to recover fully from a knee injury. Washington Sundar will miss the opening Test with a hamstring problem, and Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Akash Deep are also unavailable.
