Dinesh Karthik has been named as the replacement for an injured Wriddhiman Saha in India’s squad for the historic one-off Test against Afghanistan, scheduled to start on 14 June in Bengaluru.
Saha was ruled out after he suffered an injury to his right thumb while playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL Qualifier 2 against Kolkata Knight Riders on 25 May.
“He was under observation by the medical staff of the BCCI and the management has decided to give him adequate rest before the start of the England Test series. Saha's recovery period is expected to be around five to six weeks,” said BCCI in a statement.
Karthik will return to the Test side after a hiatus of eight years. He last played a Test for India way back in 2010 against Bangladesh in Chittagong.
Saha did not have the best of IPL this year, scoring just 234 runs in 14 games.
Karthik, on the other hand, had a splendid IPL while leading Kolkata Knight Riders. He scored a mammoth 498 runs in 16 matches to guide KKR to a third-place finish.
In 23 Tests he has played so far for India, Karthik has scored 1000 runs with a hundred and seven half-centuries.
(With inputs from PTI)
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