Speaking to the travelling Indian press 24 hours before the first Test, Rohit also confirmed that Jaiswal will open the batting with Shubman Gill, who partnered Rohit up top in the World Test Championship final last month, moving down to three.

Jaiswal has been prolific across formats in domestic cricket. The 21-year-old left-hander averages 80.21 in first-class cricket with a staggering nine hundreds from just 15 matches.

In 2023, Yashasvi Jaiswal was one of the standout players of all ages in the IPL, averaging 48.07 and striking at 163.61. Three years ago, Jaiswal was by some distance the leading run-scorer at the 2020 Under-19 World Cup; he was named as the Player of the Tournament despite Bangladesh prevailing over India in the final.

Jaiswal’s inclusion means that Gill is shifted down the order after a conversation between the 23-year-old and India head coach Rahul Dravid. Gill has opened for India in all 16 of his Test appearances to date and with Cheteshwar Pujara dropping out of India’s thinking following India’s World Test Championship final defeat to Australia, it looks like Gill will be given the chance to make the No. 3 position his own.

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Gill has enjoyed an extraordinary year that has seen him leap from exciting prospect to one of the top cross-format batters in the world game. Both of Gill’s Test hundreds have come in the last 12 months, while in ODI cricket, he has reeled off four hundreds and five fifties at an average of 74.23. He also scored his first ever T20I hundred against New Zealand earlier this year while he was comfortably the leading run-scorer in the 2023 IPL compiling three hundreds in the process of winning the Orange Cap.

Rohit also confirmed that his side would feature the spin of both Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.