Varun Chakravarthy ruled out of Japan T20I and Asian Games, Vipraj Nigam named replacement
Vipraj Nigam first came into the limelight during IPL 2025 • Getty Images
Varun Chakravarthy has been ruled out of the one-off T20I against Japan as well as the Asian Games after picking up a side strain during the first T20I against Afghanistan in Delhi. India have named legspin allrounder Vipraj Nigam as his replacement. Nitish Kumar Reddy, who was in the Asian Games squad, has been withdrawn. He will now feature in the ODI series against West Indies.
This is the maiden international call-up for Nigam, who first came into the limelight during IPL 2025. Playing for Delhi Capitals, he took 11 wickets from 14 games in that season at an economy rate of 9.12 and also scored 142 runs at a strike rate of 179.74.
Though his numbers in IPL 2026 were underwhelming - 15 runs and two wickets from five games - he was impressive for India A during the one-day tri-series in Sri Lanka in June. He was India's joint-highest wicket-taker with seven scalps from five games while also scoring 116 runs at a strike rate of 126.08.
Varun, meanwhile, suffered the injury in his very first game after returning from a hamstring issue. Initially, he was ruled out of the remainder of the Afghanistan series and was expected to travel for the Asian Games. But that is no longer the case.
In Varun's absence, Axar Patel and Ravi Bishnoi are likely to be India's first-choice spinners with Washington Sundar and Nigam available as back-ups.
India's updated squad for the Japan T20I and Asian Games
Shreyas Iyer (capt), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma (vice-capt), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Yash Thakur, Vipraj Nigam
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