India news - Ravi Bishnoi replaces injured Varun Chakravarthy in squad for Zimbabwe T20I tour

Bishnoi played the first two games of India’s five-T20I series in England. India didn’t get to bowl in the first T20I, which was washed out after they had batted, but the legspinner bowled in the second game at Old Trafford and went for 60 runs in his four overs; he also sent down three back-foot no-balls in that game, and conceded two sixes and a four off the resultant free-hits.

Varun will head to the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru for injury assessment and rehab. Fast bowler Harshit Rana is set to join him there, as he is all but ruled out of the upcoming three-match ODI series in England with a hamstring injury.

Incidentally, it was an injury to the same muscle that had forced Rana to miss the T20 World Cup – he was replaced by Mohammed Siraj in India’s 15-member squad – as well as IPL 2026. He returned to action during the T20Is in Ireland and played the first two T20Is in England before the latest setback.

The hamstring injury is another blow to Varun, who has struggled for form lately – he managed just one wicket in the two T20Is in England, while going at 10.28 per over. He fractured his left toe during the back end of IPL 2026, and played through pain and missed the T20Is against Afghanistan and Ireland while in rehab.

There is a possibility that Prince Yadav, who had earlier only been part of the T20I squad in England, will stay back for the ODI leg of the tour. Jasprit Bumrah’s return will boost India’s pace stocks for the series, as the selectors are keen for him to feature regularly in ODIs with the 50-over World Cup a little over a year away. Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar and Arshdeep Singh are the other frontline seamers in the ODI squad.

India’s squad for the Zimbabwe T20Is is expected to reach Harare on July 20. VVS Laxman, the head of the CoE, will take charge as head coach along with assistant coaches Sunil Joshi and Hrishikesh Kanitkar, to give regular head coach Gautam Gambhir and his staff a breather after the ODI series in England.

Gambhir, along with BCCI’s top brass and T20I captain Shreyas Iyer, are also expected to be at the centre of a review the board will conduct following the series losses in Ireland and England. The twin tours featured a series of unwanted milestones for India, including their first-ever defeat to Ireland, a six-match losing streak in T20Is, and their first multi-match bilateral T20I series defeat to England.

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