Prasidh Krishna lasted five overs in Guwahati, and his hamstring is one reason India’s New Zealand ODI and Test squads are still unnamed
The selectors are waiting on Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana and Rishabh Pant before they pick the 50-over and red-ball groups, with the squads due to fly out on 28 October.
Oct 16, 2026
Prasidh Krishna bowled five overs in the second ODI against West Indies in Guwahati on 30 September before feeling his left hamstring, and the team took him off as a precaution. Sixteen days later, his recovery is one of three reasons India have still not named their ODI and Test squads for New Zealand.
The T20I squad for the tour went out on 6 October. The 50-over and red-ball groups have been held back while the selectors wait on Prasidh, Harshit Rana and Rishabh Pant, the Times of India reported on Wednesday, quoting a BCCI source.
Where each of them stands
Prasidh reported to the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru after the Guwahati game and was given three weeks to get right. He missed the last ODI of that series, and Anshul Kamboj came into the squad in his place.
Pant’s problem is a side strain from the Irani Cup earlier this month. The BCCI announced on Monday that he will miss the first two of India A’s three four-day games in New Zealand, the first of which starts on 24 October. That was meant to be his red-ball preparation for the Tests.
Rana has been at the CoE since July. He was already rehabbing when he strained his rectus femoris, a thigh muscle, while bowling in a match simulation there on 7 September, and that kept him out of the T20Is against Afghanistan and the Asian Games. His next simulation is due on 25 October.
“With both Pant and Krishna, the injuries don’t look severe at the outset. But the CoE doesn’t want to take any chances,” the source told the paper.
Why Rana is worth waiting for
“The selectors and team management are keen to have Rana in both formats,” the same source said, and they see him as the seam-bowling allrounder who bats at No. 8. On New Zealand pitches, a seamer who can hold a bat at eight is not easy to find anywhere else in the pool.
The timing is tight, though. Rana’s simulation is three days before the ODI and Test squads are due to fly out on 28 October. The five-match ODI series starts in Auckland on 4 November, and the first of the two Tests is in Wellington on 19 November. If Pant is cleared, his only India A game before then would be the third, in Lincoln from 7 November.
Shreyas Iyer’s T20I side, which plays West Indies in a series decider in Bengaluru on Saturday, opens the tour at Hagley Oval in Christchurch on 22 October.