India have called up Sarfaraz Khan to replace the injured Sai Sudharsan for the upcoming two-match Test series against Sri Lanka. Sudharsan was ruled out after suffering a right toe stress reaction and is currently recovering at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, where the board says he has shown steady improvement.
Sarfaraz, who last featured in a Test back in 2024, the same year he made his debut, returns to the squad after a long wait on the sidelines. He has appeared in six Tests overall, scoring 371 runs at a record that includes one hundred and three half-centuries.
Sarfaraz Khan’s Road Back to the Indian Test Squad
Sarfaraz travelled with India’s squad for the 2024-25 tour of Australia but never got a chance to play, and selectors left him out entirely for last year’s tour of England. His domestic form, though, kept him firmly in contention. He finished as Mumbai’s third-highest run-scorer in the 2025 Ranji Trophy season, piling up 429 runs across seven matches at an average above 53.
Across his first-class career, his average of 64.73 ranks among the best for any batter with at least 50 innings, a number that explains why the selectors kept returning to his name despite the lack of recent Test cricket.
Injuries Pile Up as India Prepare for Sri Lanka Tour
India head into this series short-handed, with several frontline players unavailable, including Jasprit Bumrah and Washington Sundar. Captain Shubman Gill did not bat in the first innings of India’s warm-up game against the Sri Lanka Cricket XI, a decision that raised questions ahead of the series opener.
Spin-bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule moved quickly to clear up any concern, describing the call as purely precautionary rather than injury-related. Gill returned for the second innings and looked comfortable, scoring 44 off 54 balls as India completed the chase on the final day of the tour match.
“It was just a precaution more than anything else,” Bahutule said after the game ended. He added that Gill had trained normally throughout and that team management simply chose to rest him on the opening day. Bahutule called Gill’s second-innings knock flawless and confirmed the captain is fully prepared for the Test series.
Sri Lanka Series Dates and India’s World Test Championship Standing
The first Test begins on August 15 in Galle, followed by the second match starting August 23 at the SSC in Colombo. Both games carry weight in the ongoing World Test Championship cycle, where India currently sit fifth after four wins and four losses from nine matches.
A strong showing in Sri Lanka would help India’s push up the table as the WTC standings tighten heading into the business end of the cycle.
India’s Test squad for the series
Shubman Gill (capt), KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Manav Suthar, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar, Devdutt Padikkal, Saransh Jain, Auqib Nabi, and Sarfaraz Khan.
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