After the heartbreaking loss in the opening Test in Hyderabad, India’s plans of squaring the five-match series in the second Test against England in Visakhapatnam, starting February 2, suffered a massive jolt as star all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and batter KL Rahul were ruled out with injuries.

Jadeja looked visibly in discomfort and pain after being run out by Ben Stokes on the penultimate day of the opening Test, that India fell short by 28 runs, to trail 0-1 in the rubber. The 35-year-old was dismissed by an outrageous underarm flick at the non-striker’s end from Stokes while attempting a run off a Joe Root delivery.

Later, according to a BCCI statement, KL Rahul “complained of a right quadriceps pain” and has also been ruled out. “The BCCI Medical Team is monitoring the progress of the duo,” the board statement said.

Already without the services of the talismanic Virat Kohli, Rahul’s absence will further weaken India’s middle order batting going into the second Test. Rahul was one of the mainstays of the Indian line-up in the opening game, scoring 86 and 22 across both innings.

Consequently, the men’s selection committee has added Sarfaraz Khan, Sourabh Kumar and Washington Sundar to India’s squad for the second Test. According to the BCCI, pacer Avesh Khan will continue to travel with his Madhya Pradesh Ranji Trophy team, and will join the Test squad if required.

In Jadeja’s absence, left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav or Sundar could be the possible replacement. However, the team will undoubtedly miss the 35-year-old’s batting prowess especially, after his first innings score of 87 was the highest for India and pivotal to the team’s total of 436. He could only contribute two runs before being run out in the second innings. His combined bowling returns in the Test were 5 for 219.

Sundar’s batting credentials could be preferred over Kuldeep but it would mean that the team will have an additional off-spinner, along with the veteran Ravichandran Ashwin.

Dravid backs young batters

Throwing his weight behind the team’s young batters, head coach Rahul Dravid said that it’s a learning process for most of the players in the group, and while they have the skills and the abilities, it’s only a matter of time when things fall into place once they start executing the plans.

“A lot of players are quite young, in the sense that a lot of these guys do play a lot of white-ball cricket and also maybe don’t get a lot of time to get to play a lot of first-class cricket as well. So they’re learning and I think they’re getting there. To be fair, there have been challenging wickets as well over the last few years. And it’s been a bit of a challenge for some of our young batsmen to adapt. But they’ve got the skill and they’ve got the ability, and they’ve not come here just like that; they’ve come here by scoring a lot of runs in domestic cricket, doing well in A-team cricket. So, you know, they are being picked on merit,” he said.

While Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer were among those who failed to convert their starts into bigger scores in the first innings, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul and Jadeja got well past their half centuries, but fell short of three-figure marks. Rahul, however, doesn’t one to be too harsh on the batters’ abilities to tackle the spin.

“Look, I wouldn’t be too harsh. Rahul missed a really short ball. It just stopped. One of those things can go straight into deep midwicket’s hand. But, like I said earlier, I thought even in the first innings we could have converted some of those starts and probably got us closer to 500 and completely sealed the game,” Rahul said.

“But, having said that, you know, I thought 190 was a really good score, to be very honest with you. But then again, not many teams come in and score 420 in the third innings in India and not many players go 196. So, you know, well done,” he added.

Rahul also pointed out that the only area where the hosts probably missed was leaving runs on the field when they batted in their first innings.

“I thought we left probably 70 runs on the board in the first innings. You know, I think in our first innings, when conditions were pretty good to bat in on day two, I thought in the kinds of situations we got ourselves into, some good starts and we didn’t really capitalise,” Dravid said.

“We didn’t get a hundred, you know, we didn’t get somebody getting a really big hundred for us. So, in some ways, in India, I just felt we left those 70, 80 runs back in the hut in the first innings. Second innings is always going to be challenging. It’s one of those things that, you know, it’s tough. It’s not easy to chase 230 or it’s not done very often,” he defended.

Bumrah reprimanded for breach

India’s pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has been handed an official reprimand for breaching the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Code of Conduct during the first Test against England in Hyderabad, and as a result, one demerit point has been added to his disciplinary record.

According to a statement released by the ICC, the 30-year-old was found guilty of breaching Article 2.12 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to “inappropriate physical contact with a Player, Player Support Personnel, Umpire, Match Referee or any other person (including a spectator during an International Match.”

The said incident took place on the first session of the fourth day when Bumrah, bowling the 81st over of England’s second innings was deemed to have deliberately stepped in Ollie Pope’s way as he went about taking a run, leading to ‘inappropriate physical contact’.

Bumrah admitted to the offence to match referee Richie Richardson, leaving the matter without a formal hearing. Level 1 breaches, of which the Indian pacer has been found guilty, carry a minimum penalty of an official reprimand, a maximum penalty of 50 per cent of a player’s match fee, and one or two demerit points. Bumrah snapped four wickets in the second innings including that of Pope (196), for a match haul of 6 for 69.