NEW DELHI: Rishabh Pant has been ruled out of the first two four-day matches of India A’s tour of New Zealand after picking up a left side strain while captaining the Rest of India in the Irani Cup, the BCCI announced on Monday. Twenty-one-year-old Jharkhand wicketkeeper-batter Kumar Kushagra has been named as his replacement for the opening two fixtures, with Dhruv Jurel continuing to lead the side.
The decision closes a frustrating chapter for Pant’s return to red-ball rhythm. His selection in the India A squad, announced by the men’s selection committee on October 6, was already subject to fitness clearance as he builds toward the senior side’s two-Test series in New Zealand in November. The strain forced him off the wicketkeeping duties during the Jammu & Kashmir chase in the Irani Cup, and he later batted down the order while also battling illness.
The BCCI confirmed that Pant is under the care of the board’s medical team and is recovering well, though no specific details about the severity of the strain were made available. A call on his availability for the third and final unofficial Test, beginning November 7 in Lincoln, will be taken at a later stage. Early last week, the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association had confirmed Pant made himself unavailable for the Ranji Trophy opener starting October 11.
In Pant’s absence, Jurel will double up — continuing as captain while taking the gloves as the first-choice wicketkeeper for the first two games, with Kushagra providing specialist cover. The leadership call is significant: Jurel, 25, already leads the ‘A’ side, and the dual responsibility signals the selectors’ faith in his temperament at a time when India is grooming options behind the stumps.
For Kushagra, the call-up is the reward for a red-ball purple patch. The young keeper struck a century against the touring Australia A side in Puducherry and has two hundreds in his last three first-class outings, including one in the Duleep Trophy final. Across 38 first-class matches he has 2,507 runs at 42.49 with seven hundreds, and his highest score of 266 underlines that this is a batter who can change the course of a game, not just a gloveman filling a slot.
The shadow tour itself carries more weight than the scoreline. The three four-day games — October 24 to 27 in Lincoln, October 31 to November 3 at Hagley Oval in Christchurch, and November 7 to 10 back in Lincoln — are the designated build-up for the senior side’s two Tests, which have direct bearing on India’s World Test Championship qualification race. The India A squad is stacked with Test regulars and aspirants, including Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Devdutt Padikkal, Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar, making every performance a de facto audition.
Pant remains India’s first-choice wicketkeeper in red-ball cricket, and any prolonged absence would concern the team management ahead of those high-stakes Tests. But for now, the story belongs to the understudies. Jurel gets two matches to stake his claim as a leader who can carry the gloves, and Kushagra — 21, fearless, and in the form of his life — has the rarest commodity in Indian cricket: a genuine opening in a queue that almost never moves.
