MUM­BAI – In a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment, all-rounder Ravin­dra Jade­ja has been named the vice-cap­tain of the In­di­an Test squad for the up­com­ing two-match se­ries against West In­dies in In­dia.

This marks Jade­ja’s first of­fi­cial ap­point­ment as vice-cap­tain in the longest for­mat, though he has pre­vi­ous­ly held the role in ODI and T20I teams.

Shub­man Gill will con­tin­ue to lead the side for his sec­ond Test se­ries as cap­tain, hav­ing de­buted in the role dur­ing the re­cent tour of Eng­land.

The squad sees a ma­jor lead­er­ship change from that Eng­land tour, as Rishabh Pant, who was the deputy then, has not re­cov­ered suf­fi­cient­ly from his foot frac­ture to be avail­able for se­lec­tion.

With Pant ab­sent, the wick­et­keep­ing du­ties fall to Dhruv Ju­rel and N Ja­gadeesan, with Ju­rel ex­pect­ed to be the first-choice glove­man.

The squad al­so wel­comes back pace spear­head Jasprit Bum­rah. His in­clu­sion is no­table giv­en the tight sched­ul­ing; the first Test in Ahmed­abad be­gins on Oc­to­ber 2, just three days af­ter the Asia Cup fi­nal in Dubai on Sep­tem­ber 28, where Bum­rah is ex­pect­ed to fea­ture promi­nent­ly.

The se­lec­tion pan­el has made sev­er­al changes from the ex­pand­ed squad that toured Eng­land. Along­side Pant, Ab­hi­manyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Akash Deep, An­shul Kam­boj, Ar­shdeep Singh, and Shardul Thakur have been left out.

Their places have been tak­en by all-rounder Axar Pa­tel, bat­ter De­v­dutt Padikkal, and wick­et­keep­er Ja­gadeesan.

This se­ries against West In­dies, com­pris­ing Tests in Ahmed­abad (Oc­to­ber 2) and Del­hi (Oc­to­ber 10), is In­dia’s sec­ond en­gage­ment in the 2025-27 World Test Cham­pi­onship (WTC) cy­cle.

In­dia cur­rent­ly sits third in the WTC stand­ings with 46.67 per­cent­age points. Aus­tralia leads the ta­ble with a per­fect 100%, fol­lowed by Sri Lan­ka at 66.67%.

West In­dies are yet to open their ac­count, hav­ing been swept 3-0 by Aus­tralia in June-Ju­ly.

In­dia’s Test Squad for West In­dies Se­ries:

Shub­man Gill (Cap­tain), Yashasvi Jaisw­al, KL Rahul, B Sai Sud­harsan, De­v­dutt Padikkal, Dhruv Ju­rel (WK), Ravin­dra Jade­ja (Vice-Cap­tain), Wash­ing­ton Sun­dar, Jasprit Bum­rah, Axar Pa­tel, Ni­tish Ku­mar Red­dy, Mo­hammed Sir­aj, Prasidh Kr­ish­na, Kuldeep Ya­dav, N Ja­gadeesan (WK).

CMC l