Shivam Dube and Ramandeep Singh have been added to India's T20I squad for the series against England in place of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Rinku Singh. Reddy is out of the five-match series with a side strain, while Rinku experienced lower-back spasms while fielding during the first T20I against England and is out for at least the second and third matches.*
With the second game set to be played later today in Chennai, Dube and Ramandeep will be available from the third T20I onwards.
Reddy picked up his injury during a training session ahead of the second T20I. He will head to the BCCI's Centre of Excellence - the newly opened National Cricket Academy premises on the outskirts of Bengaluru - for rehabilitation.
Dube's last outing for India was in August 2024, during an ODI series in Sri Lanka. He then missed India's home T20I series against Bangladesh with a back injury. Dube returned to cricket with the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where he scored 151 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 179.76, and took three wickets at an economy of 9.31.
In all, he has played 33 T20Is for India, for 448 runs at a strike rate of 134.93 with the bat, and 11 wickets with the ball. He was part of India's T20 World Cup-winning squad in the West Indies and USA last year.
Ramandeep has played just the two T20Is for India, both in South Africa last November. In the recent Vijay Hazare Trophy, the 50-over tournament, he totalled 126 runs from six innings for Punjab, mostly providing quick runs for a strike rate of 134.04.
Dube's most recent outing at the competitive level was Mumbai's Ranji Trophy match against Jammu and Kashmir, which ended on Saturday afternoon. He was out without scoring in both innings, and picked up one wicket in the match as Mumbai lost by five wickets. Ramandeep was also involved in the just-concluded Ranji round, also minimally, scoring 16 and a duck in Punjab's big loss to Karnataka.
India won the first T20I against England, in Kolkata, by seven wickets with all of 43 balls remaining. Reddy didn't have much to do in the game: he took two catches, but did not get to bowl or bat as India romped home. Rinku, too, did not get to bat with the top order polishing off the chase of 133.
India's updated T20I squad
Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Axar Patel (vice-capt), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Washington Sundar, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Shivam Dube, Ramandeep Singh.
*The story was updated after the BCCI put out a statement.