Keeping track of India’s squad changes in 2026 has meant keeping track of an unusually long injury list. Here it is, series by series.
Sri Lanka Test Series, August
- Sai Sudharsan: ruled out with a toe injury, covered fully in our Sudharsan update
- Jasprit Bumrah: ruled out with a left knee issue
- Washington Sundar: missed at least the first Test with a hamstring injury from the England tour
- Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy: both already unavailable heading into the tour
Asian Games Squad, September
- Harshit Rana: withdrawn with a rectus femoris strain, replaced by Yash Thakur
- Varun Chakravarthy: withdrawn with a side strain, replaced by Vipraj Nigam
- Nitish Kumar Reddy: withdrawn from the squad entirely
Selection Absences That Weren’t Injuries
Not every high-profile omission this year was fitness-related. Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill and Rinku Singh were all left out of T20I squads on selection grounds, a separate story covered in our piece on India’s 2026 selection controversies.
The Bigger Trend
The overlap between the Asian Games and the West Indies home series forced the BCCI to field two separate squads simultaneously, stretching a talent pool that, while deep, has still needed careful management, as our injury list breakdown shows in more detail.