Shubman Gill is not yet officially out of the second Test against South Africa in Guwahati, but all signs suggest he is unlikely to play.
With Nitish Kumar Reddy rejoining the squad after being released from the first Test in Kolkata, India presently have three options to take Gill's place in their XI: two specialist batters in B Sai Sudharsan and Devdutt Padikkal, and a seam-bowling allrounder in Reddy.
Who comes in if Gill isn't fit to play? The obvious answer would be Sai Sudharsan, who lost his place in Kolkata when India decided to play an extra spin-bowling allrounder in Axar Patel. Washington Sundar moved up to the No. 3 slot vacated by Sai Sudharsan, and scored 29 and 31, facing more balls across the two innings (174) than anyone on either side in the Test match.
Sai Sudharsan, as the man at the head of India's specialist-batter queue, is the obvious choice to take Gill's place in Guwahati in every respect bar one: he bats left-handed. As does Padikkal.
In Guwahati, the offspinner Simon Harmer was South Africa's key bowler and the Player of the Match with four wickets in each innings. Six of his eight wickets were of left-hand batters, and India's struggle against him was magnified by the presence of six left-hand batters in their line-up.
Gill only faced three balls in the first innings before retiring hurt with neck spasms, and did not play any further part in the match. India effectively had only ten men in both their innings, and were without their captain, their best middle-order batter, and a right-hand batter to boot.
India would ideally want a specialist right-hand batter to replace Gill, but no such candidate exists as yet in their squad.
Reddy is the right-handed option, but he is as yet far from the finished product both as a batter and a bowler. India played him in both Tests of their last Test series before this one, against West Indies, effectively using those games as a means of giving him experience. He only bowled four overs across the two Tests, and batted just once. In their preferred batting order, he slotted in at No. 8 behind the spin-bowling allrounders Ravindra Jadeja and Washington.
India left Reddy out in Kolkata, preferring an extra specialist batter in Dhruv Jurel given the stiffer challenge posed by South Africa's bowlers compared to those of West Indies. Reddy would, in short, be a far-from-like-for-like replacement for Gill.
There are two ways for India to work around their lack of a specialist right-hand option to take Gill's place.
Bring in Gaikwad or Sarfaraz
The straightforward one is to bring one into their squad from outside. The three right-hand top-order batters other than Jurel who played the two unofficial Tests for India A against South Africa A were Ayush Mhatre - an opener who scored fifties in both games - Rajat Patidar and Ayush Badoni. Ruturaj Gaikwad, who scored 117 and 68* in the first two matches of the 50-overs leg of that series, is another option. Only Patidar of all these names has played Test cricket before - three against England at home last year - but he has not played since the first four-day game against South Africa A, and is not playing for Madhya Pradesh in their ongoing Ranji Trophy match against Kerala, with reports suggesting he may be out with an injury.
Another choice - obvious in one respect but left-field in another - is Sarfaraz Khan, who hasn't played Test cricket since last year's home series against New Zealand, but was part of India's squad for the tour of Australia that followed. He has a century and three fifties and an average of 37.10 across six Tests so far, and is known for his attacking, innovative game against spin. He has, however, not been part of recent India A squads, which suggests he may not be near the top of the selectors' list of back-up Test batters.
And then there's Karun Nair, who came back to India's Test side after an eight-year gap on their recent tour of England, but was dropped after a series where he often got off to starts but only passed 50 once in four Tests. He has made a stunning start to the Ranji Trophy season, though, with scores of 73, 174*, 233 and 95 among his seven innings so far. He is also renowned for his ability against spin, particularly his use of the sweep and reverse-sweep.
Play Sai Sudharsan, with Reddy replacing a spin-bowling allrounder
If India have to replace Gill from within their squad, they likely have two options. One is to pick Sai Sudharsan - or Padikkal, if he has, for some reason, jumped the queue in the team management's estimation - and accept that they will go into the Test with seven left-hand batters in their XI, and six in their top eight.
The other would be to pick Sai Sudharsan and Reddy, and sacrifice one of their spin-bowling allrounders. Given the job Washington did with the bat in Kolkata, and given the fact that he has consistently played ahead of Axar since his comeback against New Zealand last year, it's unlikely India will leave him out. Axar, picked specifically as a second left-arm spinner in Kolkata to combat a right-hander-heavy South Africa line-up, will then have to make way.
This would make sense also because Axar struggled to challenge both edges of the bat on a sharply turning Eden Gardens pitch. Axar made an instant impact in his debut Test series against England in 2021 with his wide angle of release and undercutting delivery style that led one right-hand batter after another to their doom, bowled or lbw playing for non-existent turn.
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He took 27 wickets in that series, at the scarcely believable average of 10.59, but teams have since then worked out a reliable way of playing him, playing his angle without expectation of big turn. Axar has taken 30 wickets in 12 Tests since that series - all in Asian conditions - at an average of 27.83 and a strike rate of 63.1. Even in Kolkata, balls from Axar that turned enough to threaten the right-handers' outside edge were an infrequent event.
It would make sense, then, to leave out Axar on bowling rhythm, but it would force India away from a match-up that dominated their thinking in Kolkata. Axar bowled 20 overs across that match, and Washington - partly because of his new top-order batting role, partly because he is an offspinner, and partly because India had as many as six bowling options - only one.
Washington will have to bowl a lot more overs in Guwahati if Axar doesn't play, particularly since India's history with Reddy suggests they will not use him much at all. This, though, shouldn't be an issue given they will still have five proper bowling options. And while Washington turns the ball into the right-hand batter, the outward drift he generates makes him as likely to get them out caught as slip as he is to get them lbw or caught bat-pad.
Leaving out Axar, of course, would also mean leaving out a trusted, experienced batting hand who made two important contributions in Kolkata while batting with the tail. But picking Reddy as a non-bowling No. 8 isn't without its advantages. The obvious one is his right-handedness, but the more relevant one might be how well he handled Nathan Lyon during his debut series in Australia in 2024-25, constantly putting pressure back on the offspinner by stepping out to him, driving him against the turn, or bringing out the reverse-sweep. Lyon dismissed Reddy twice in the series, but conceded 86 runs to him off 127 balls. For all the differences between Harmer and Lyon as offspinners, these numbers will encourage India if they do decide to pick Reddy.