Dinesh Karthik is most likely to replace Saha for the one-off Test against Afghanistan

After a scintillating end to the premier T20 league, Indian Team is all set to take on Afghanistan on its home soil for a one-off Test encounter which is scheduled to start on 14 June. The 15 member squad for the Test has already been announced with Ajinkya Rahane taking the captaincy baton as the regular skipper Virat Kohli, who has been rested.

Further to this, if the reports are to believed, India’s prolific wicket-keeper batsman Wriddhiman Saha is all set to miss out due to the injury which had sidelined him in the eleventh edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). To his replacement, MSK Prasad and committee are confident to put Dinesh Karthik ahead of Parthiv Patel, who has been seen in past being the backup wicketkeeper in the longest format for India.

The reason which is sighted of giving Karthik an extra run ahead of Parthiv Patel is well seen in terms of the next big series which India will face in a months time. Karthik, who was a part of Indian Test set-up in 2007 carries a dazzling record against the Englishmen having scores of over 50 at three different venues in a single series. He scored 60 at the Home Of Cricket, Lord’s, followed by 77 at Nottingham and 9 short of a well deserved hundred at the Oval.

Karthik’s Test Career

Since Karthik will be in the mix of limited-overs series in England, this can well be the reason to have believed in him more than anyone else at the moment. Karthik was last seen in the white jersey way back in 2010 against Bangladesh but has a prolific first-class record with 27 hundreds and scoring over 9000 runs. In 23 Tests for India, he has scored 1000 runs with a hundred and seven half-centuries by his side.

However, the final announcement is yet to come from Mr MSK Prasad, but if he gets a run it will be interesting to see if he is able to continue his form in the longest format and prove his stature at the apex level.

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