Team India arrive in Chennai ahead of first Test vs Bangladesh

A few members of the Indian cricket landed in Chennai on Thursday night, ahead of the first Test match against Bangladesh next week.

Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, and K L Rahul were spotted boarding the team bus at the airport along with some of the support staff members. Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Akash Deep also reached Chennai on Thursday.

The two-match series between India and Bangladesh kicks off in Chennai from September 19, while the next game will be played in Kanpur from September 27.

The Indian team will have a five-day training camp in Chennai ahead of the Test series. Head coach Gautam Gambhir will be keen to start off with a victory in his first Test assignment.

Pacer Yash Dayal received his maiden Test call-ups, while dynamic wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant has returned to Test cricket for the first time since a serious car crash in December 2022.

Notably, Virat Kohli also returns to Test format for the first time since featuring for India during the

South Africa tour in January this year. He missed out on the home Test series against England earlier this year due to the birth of his son Akaay.

Since then, he has gone through an underwhelming T20 World Cup and in the ODI series in Sri Lanka and will be keen to return to find his rich vein of form. During India's unbeaten run in the T20 World Cup, Virat finished the tournament with 151 runs in eight matches at an average of 18.87 and managed a mere 58 runs at an average of 19 in Sri Lanka.

Rahul has also made his return to the Test set-up after missing out on the bulk of the England Test series due to an injury. Bumrah has also returned to the Indian team for the first time since producing that match-winning spell in the T20 World Cup final against South Africa earlier this year.

The spin quartet of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, and Kuldeep Yadav will provide the team with both the bat and ball. Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, and Yash Dayal will make India's pace line-up.

For the Rohit Sharma-led side, this series against Bangladesh will be followed by New Zealand's tour to India for three Tests starting from October 16 onwards and, finally, the highly-anticipated Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia from November 22.