India v New Zealand: Gill doubtful with stiff neck, wait and watch with Shami

Bengaluru: India’s Test No.3 Shubman Gill remains a doubtful starter for the first Test against New Zealand starting here on Wednesday. Gill has been on the physio’s table to treat his stiff neck.
If Gill doesn’t recover in time, it will open an opportunity for Sarfaraz Khan with KL Rahul likely to be pushed up to No.3. Sarfaraz has been waiting in the wings after an impressive start to his Test career where he scored 200 runs in three Tests against England, including three fifties, early this year.
Injured Shami
Pacer Mohammed Shami is not a certainty for the five-Test Australia series starting in late November, but every effort is being made to give him the chance to regain match fitness so that he can be picked.
“I mean, to be honest, right now it’s pretty difficult for us to make a call on him, whether he’ll be fit for this series or Australia series. You know, he recently had a setback, he had a swelling in his knee, which was quite unusual. While he was in the process of getting fit, getting close to 100%, he had swelling in his knee.
“That put him back a little bit in his recovery, so he had to start again fresh. Right now he’s at NCA (now Centre of Excellence), he’s working with the physios, the doctors at NCA,” India skipper Rohit Sharma told the media on Tuesday.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed. We want him to be fit, 100% fit, more than anything else. We don’t want to bring an undercooked Shami to Australia, that is not going to be the right decision for us. He’s not played cricket for a year and it is quite tough for a fast bowler to have missed so much of cricket, and then suddenly come out and be at his best. It is not ideal.
“The physios, the trainers, the doctors have set a roadmap for him. He is supposed to play a couple of games before he plays international cricket. So we’ll see where he’s at after this New Zealand series and then take a call, at what stage of Australia he’ll be fit for us.”
Rohit also added that express pacer Mayank Yadav, all-rounder Nitish Reddy and pacer Harshit Rana who are with the team for the series as travelling reserves are all in contention to be fast-tracked for the Australia tour. Prasidh Krishna, who suffered from a niggle during the first round Ranji Trophy match for Karnataka, is also a contender, provided he is fully fit.