Ahmedabad: Young right-arm fast bowler Abhimanyu Mithun on Monday replaced injured Praveen Kumar in India's Test squad for the upcoming four-match away series against Australia.
Mithun, who has played four Tests for India, the last in Barbados in May, has been added to the 17-man squad after Praveen was ruled out of the Test series in Australia with a fractured rib.
Mithun joins Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron and Ishant Sharma in India's pace department for the Australia tour, with pacer spearhead Zaheer Khan selected provisionally, as he has to prove his fitness before the squad's departure.
The BCCI's All-India Senior Selection Committee which met on Monday also replaced pacer Yadav with Irfan Pathan for the last two ODIs against the West Indies to be played in Indore and Chennai on December 8 and 11 respectively.
Umesh's exclusion has been the only change in the current ODI team as the selectors have retained the rest of the squad for the remaining two matches against the Caribbean side, according to a statement issued by BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale.
Six other players will leave on Thursday for Australia for a four-Test series that starts in Melbourne on Dec. 26. They are Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha and Wriddhiman Saha.
The seven players will be accompanied by Evan Speechly (physiotherapist), Ramji Srinivasan (trainer), Amit Shah (massage therapist) and Raghavendra DVGI (attendant).