Axar Patel called in as replacement

India have brought in left-arm spin-bowling allrounder Axar Patel for the third test scheduled at Pallekele in Sri Lanka that begins on August 12  as a replacement for the suspended Ravindra Jadeja.. He will be the third spinner in the squad behind offspinner R Ashwin and left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav.Axar is yet to make his debut in Test cricket, but has played 30 ODIs and seven T20 internationals. He has played 23 first-class matches and taken 79 wickets at 30.37. He has just finished playing the 50-over tri-series in South Africa with India A. He finished the team’s third-highest wicket-taker in the series with seven wickets in four games and an economy rate of 4.11.

Jadeja was suspended at the end of the second Test for disciplinary issues; following an incident where he threw the ball at batsman Malinda Pushpakumara “in a dangerous manner” according to the on-field umpires. He was given three demerit points, taking his total to six demerit points inside a 24-month period which triggered a one-Test suspension. Incidentally, he was the Man of the Match in that Test for his his unbeaten 70 off 85 balls and second-innings five-for. India have already won the three-match series, with victories in Galle and at the SSC.

He won’t be able to play the next test match in Sri Lanka due to the ban imposed on him by ICC, but Ravinder Jadeja edged out Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan to claim the top-rank among all-rounders apart from maintaining top position in the bowlers’ chart in the latest ICC test match rankings.

Jadeja currently has 438 points among the all-rounders while Shakib has 431 points.

Cheteshwar Pujara gained a place to be third among batsmen while Virat Kohli maintained his fifth position.Steve Smith and Joe Root are still at No 1 and 2 position in batsmen rankings. The significant gainer is Ajinkya Rahane, who has climbed five places to be sixth in the list. Opener K L Rahul is at number 11 with 737 points.

In the bowlers’ list Ravichandran Ashwin dropped a place to be third with Jimmy Anderson a notch below Jadeja.

Pacers Mohammad Shami at 20th and Umesh Yadav at 22nd have also made notable gains.