The much anticipated Indian squad for the upcoming Australian tour has finally been revealed on Friday. Opener Abhimanyu Easwaran, Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy found their place in the 18 member contingent for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Mohammed Shami didn’t make the cut as he hasn’t been able to recover from the ankle injury and has only started bowling in the nets recently. Harshit Rana’s selection was a bit surprising as the KKR fast bowler is yet to make his India debut despite his earlier call-up to the T20I and ODI squads.

A place was on offer following Shami’s absence from the squad and Harshit managed to convince the Indian management despite his inexperience in international cricket. Now it has emerged, Rana’s selection has entirely been backed by none other than current Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir.

Having seen Rana from close proximity during his mentorship days with KKR, Gambhir took a call on his selection and as per a BCCI source, Rana’s explosive pace and his relatively young age turned out to be in his favour.

A BCCI source told PTI, “Harshit Rana has been completely Gautam Gambhir's choice. He has been pushing his case for the longest time since the start of the Sri Lanka tour. He was also kept as a reserve bowler. Since he is younger and quicker than both Navdeep Saini and Mukesh Kumar, he has pipped them to the final squad.”

India squad for the tour of Australia

Rohit Sharma (capt), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar

Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed

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