England vs India 2018: Four dark horses who could be named in India's Test squad to face England

The most-anticipated series of 2018, the five-match Test series between India and England will get underway at Birmingham on August 1 and the Indian team has already arrived in the United Kingdom to prepare themselves and get used to the conditions ahead of such an important series.

The Men in Blue will play a three-match ODI and a three-match T20I series before the Test series and the Test specialists are likely to feature in warm-up matches before the first Test gets underway. The Indian selectors are yet to announce the squad for the series. Announcing the squad earlier would have helped the Test specialists to prepare accordingly for the five-match series.

The Test is likely to feature almost every single player, who was a part of the South Africa tour but the selectors might spring in a surprise by naming a few players out of nowhere as the X-factors.

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et us take a look at four dark horses who could be picked in the Indian squad for the Test series against England.

India's probable squad for the Test series against England: KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (captain), Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain) Wriddhiman Saha (Wicketkeeper), Dinesh Karthik (Wicketkeeper), R Ashwin, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Karun Nair.

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Deepak Chahar

Fast bowler Deepak Chahar has been in phenomenal touch of late as he played a crucial role in Chennai Super Kings winning their third IPL title. He carried on his golden run to England, where he has been impressive with his bowling for India A in the tri-series against England Lions and West Indies A.

With the red cherry in his hands, he can inflict a considerable damage to the opposition's batting order as he is someone who is capable of moving the ball both ways and his pace is something that will be very ideal for a fast bowler in England.

In spite of having the likes of Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini, Rajneesh Gurbani, Mohammed Siraj etc., it won't be a surprise if Chahar gets a call-up to the Indian Test team.

Vijay Shankar

All-rounder Vijay Shankar, who made his national debut in the 2018 Nidahas Trophy, is yet another candidate who can be a dark horse to be picked in the Indian Test team for the tour of England.

Vijay, like Hardik Pandya, is an all-rounder, who is more reliable than Hardik with the bat, which is evident from his first-class batting average of nearly 50 in 32 matches. With the ball, he has every quality that a pacer needs to do well in England.

Along with Hardik, Vijay will give the team management a lot of options ahead of the Test matches.

Shreyas Iyer

A batting average of 54 in 46 matches is a phenomenal record but unfortunately, Shreyas Iyer is yet to make his Test debut for India, thanks to the middle-order resources the Indian team has at the moment.

The team management will have to take a call in figuring out the perfect combination as they might be divided between 6-5 combination and 7-4 combination. Rohit Sharma, who has hardly looked threatening in Tests, made way for Karun Nair for the Afghanistan Test.

Karun didn't get to play the one-off Test and if the selectors decide to look beyond the Karnataka batsman for options, Shreyas Iyer is the perfect choice to draft into the side as the back-up middle-order batsman.

Kuldeep Yadav:

Along with Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav has been India's go-to man in limited-overs cricket as they have shared a lot of success for the team of late.

But, the same cannot be said of his place in the Test side as he is the third-choice spinner behind R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who have been instrumental in India's Test success post the 2015 World Cup.

Kuldeep was in the Indian squad for the one-off Test against Afghanistan but the Indian selectors have the habit of naming just two spinners when the team travels overseas. Taking Kuldeep's Chinaman mystery element and England's weaknesses against the spin bowlers into consideration, it won't be surprising if the selectors name him in the squad as the third spinner.