Kotian is expected to fly to Melbourne on Tuesday following Ashwin’s retirement at the end of the third Test in Brisbane. He is currently in Ahmedabad as part of the Mumbai team for the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
The fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy begins on Thursday with the five-match series tied 1-1. Kotian is expected to be the substitute for Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja, the team’s two players, after Axar Patel is believed to have been unavailable.
Kotian, 26, played 33 first-class matches and took 101 wickets at an average of 25.70. He has also scored 1525 runs in 47 innings, scoring 41.21 with two centuries and 13 fifties. He was part of India A’s tour of Australia that preceded the Border-Gavaskar Trophy: he played one match, scoring 44 runs and taking one wicket.
He played an important role in Mumbai’s victorious 2023-24 Ranji Trophy campaign, scoring 502 runs at an average of 41.83 and picking up 29 wickets at an average of 16.96, earning him the Player of the Tournament award. Kotian was the only player to complete the season’s double of 500 runs and 25 wickets.
In the ongoing Ranji Trophy, which is played in two phases with the T20 and List A tournaments in between, Kotian has played two of the five matches for Mumbai as he was in Australia. He has been successful with the ball, picking up 12 wickets at an average of 16.66, but has not had much luck with the bat, scoring 30 runs in three innings. His most recent notable performance, however, came with the bat, when he scored 64 and 114 not out, both from the 8th over, in Mumbai’s Iran Cup victory over Rest of India in early October. He also took three wickets in his only innings of bowling in that game.
Kotian and Manav Suthar, the 22-year-old left-arm spin bowling all-rounder from Rajasthan, are considered to be next in line as far as India’s Test setup is concerned, with Uttar’s Saurabh Kumar, 31 years. Pradesh may have fallen behind in the race. Kotian and Suthar played one match each on that Australia tour for India A.
Team India for the fourth and fifth tests
Rohit Sharma (captain), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep , Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Devdutt Padikkal, Tanush Kotian
