India have added Devdutt Padikkal to their Test squad for the high-octane Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Shubman Gill has been ruled out of the First test against Australia with a thumb injury, which has opened the doors for Devdutt Padikkal, who made his Test debut against England in Dharamsala in March and he scored 65 batting at No. 4 in India's only innings.

However, he is yet to play another Test but he has plenty of domestic experience under his belt. He has played 40 first-class games and racked up 2677 runs at a solid average of 42.49. His best part is he can bat anywhere from No. 1 to No. 6. But his best has come at No. 3, piling up 1247 runs at an average of 51.95 and four hundreds.

So it is quite sure that since Gill is unavailable, he might be India's No. 3, with Virat Kohli to bat at No. 4.

India squad for Australia Test tour:
Rohit Sharma (Captain), Jasprit Bumrah (Vice-captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (Wicketkeeper), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (Wicketkeeper), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Devdutt Padikkal.

Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed.

The first Test of the BGT 2024-2025 commence from Friday, November 22 at Optus Stadium, Perth. India are the winners of BGT for last four occasions on the trot, with two times in Australia. The last time Australia won a BGT was back in 2014.