Former Indian wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik backed the inclusion of young batter Devdutt Padikkal in the 15-member squad for the upcoming home Test series against the West Indies. Team India will play two Tests against the Caribbean side, starting at Ahmedabad on October 2.Padikkal suffered a hamstring injury that ruled him out of the latter stages of IPL 2025. It meant that the southpaw was excluded from the Indian squad for their recent Test tour of England.However, Padikkal scored a brilliant 150 in the India A four-day game against Australia A a week back.Talking about his inclusion in the squad for the West Indies series, Karthik said on Cricbuzz (27:30):"I really feel Devdutt being given an opportunity is a good thing because he has got 80 in Australia (for India A last year). He's got skills because Australia is a very hard place to play and he got runs there. And the England series last year, he got a 50 in Dharamsala. So he has earned his stripes. He got injured and that's why Karun Nair came into the squad. Otherwise Devdutt would have been part of the squad from day one in England. So he has earned his recall into the Indian team."Padikkal last played for India in the first Test of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy down under. He scored only 25 runs across the two innings and was dropped for the subsequent games."They are moving on from him, which is very tough on him" - Dinesh Karthik on Karun Nair's exclusionDinesh Karthik believes Karun Nair's exclusion from the Indian squad for the West Indies series could be a sign that the side is moving on from him in the long format. The 33-year-old made a stunning comeback to the Indian Test setup for the recent England tour after eight years.However, Nair struggled with the bat in the series, averaging an underwhelming 25.62 in eight innings, with a lone half-century."The fact that Karun Nair is not looked at anymore means they are moving on from him, which is very tough on him. I think he played in one of the toughest series on tough pitches. But in all fairness, he'll look back himself and say, 'Could I have scored more runs in a couple of innings at the start, in the first three Tests?' Because in the last Test, he got a 50 on a tough pitch," said Karthik (via the aforementioned source).He added:"I can promise you if he was playing this series, he would get runs. It's almost a given, the way he's batting. The fact is they are saying, 'Big series, we have him an opportunity and he didn't deliver. So we move on to somebody young for the future'."Nair has played only 10 Tests despite making his debut in 2016, averaging over 41, with his lone century being the famous triple ton in 2017.