India vs England: Harbhajan Singh picks Sarfaraz Khan for Test debut in Vizag

Sarfaraz Khan's consistent run in the domestic circuit finally earned him a call-up to the national team ahead of the second Test of the five-match series against England in Visakhapatnam, where the home team will try to rally after losing the opener.

While Virat Kohli will continue to remain absent having withdrawn himself from the first two Tests of the series due to personal reasons, injuries to KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja have further depleted the squad. But it resulted in Sarfaraz, Sourabh Kumar and Washington Sundar's inclusion in the squad.



Earlier, Rajat Patidar had been brought in after Kohli's withdrawal.



Rahul's unavailability opens up another batting slot in the playing XI for the second Test, for which there will likely be a toss-up between Patidar and Sarfaraz, and former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has voted in favour of Sarfaraz.

“I think Sarfaraz should play. He has been scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket. He performed well in the games against England Lions as well”, said Harbhajan on his YouTube channel.

The lean form of Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer remains a concern, and Harbhajan feels Rahul's absence will further put pressure on the young Indian batters.



“Gill and Iyer haven’t scored much runs in the last 10 innings. A lot is expected from them and hopefully they will perform. With KL not in team, the responsibility is now even more on these two," said Harbhajan.

The spin-bowling great, famously known as 'Turbanator', added that a spinning track may result in India going in with four spinners.

"The pitch is likely to turn; and if it is worse than Hyderabad, then we might see spin more and only (Jasprit) Bumrah might play as pacer."

Harbajhan's Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Sarfaraz Khan, Washington Sundar, Srikar Bharat (WK), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bmrah, Kuldeep Yadav/Mohammad Siraj