Suthar, Jain, Brar out: five who missed India's NZ Test squad cut

India's Test squad for the New Zealand leg of the tour has one clear theme: the men who won in Sri Lanka in August have made way for senior players coming back from injury or rest. Five members of that squad are missing, and the biggest name among them is left-arm spinner Manav Suthar.

The BCCI named a 16-man group for the two Tests, to be played in Wellington and Christchurch. Shubman Gill captains and KL Rahul is vice-captain. The batting core is the same unit that took the series in Sri Lanka: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal and Sai Sudharsan, with Rishabh Pant and Dhruv Jurel as wicketkeepers. Pant's place depends on fitness after the injury he picked up while leading Rest of India in the Irani Cup.

The five who were in the Sri Lanka squad but are absent now are Suthar, off-spinner Saransh Jain, pacers Gurnoor Brar and Auqib Nabi, and batter Sarfaraz Khan. Sarfaraz had been called up as cover for Sudharsan during the Sri Lanka tour. Sudharsan is now back after recovering from injury.

Suthar's omission is the one that will be debated most. He made his Test debut against Afghanistan in June and was named Player of the Match. He then became a regular in the XI in Sri Lanka. His career tally is 23 wickets from three Tests at an average of 17.34, with two five-wicket hauls and a ten-wicket match. In the Sri Lanka series he took 16 wickets. He had 4 for 76 and 6 for 55 in Galle, where India won by 165 runs. That win was set up by a 167 from Padikkal, who was Player of the Match.

The Galle win decided the series. The second Test in Colombo was drawn after Sri Lanka's Sonal Dinusha made an unbeaten 133 on the last day, which left India 1-0 up.

The selectors did not explain the Suthar decision in the squad announcement, so the reasoning is inference. New Zealand pitches have traditionally helped seam bowling, and the squad shows it. Jasprit Bumrah returns to lead the attack with Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna and Anshul Kamboj. Nitish Kumar Reddy adds a seam-bowling all-rounder option. Bumrah had been withdrawn from the Sri Lanka squad, and Akash Deep is back after a long injury layoff.

The spin department is Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Washington Sundar. Sundar was unavailable for the first Test in Sri Lanka, which is why Jain was picked there. With Sundar fit again, there is no obvious role for a second off-spinner, and the one spin slot a Wellington or Christchurch pitch may allow is already contested by the three senior spinners.

Brar's case is slightly different. He travelled to Sri Lanka but did not play either Test. He has played nine ODIs for India and is part of the one-day set-up for this tour. The management seems to be letting him build his case in white-ball cricket first, rather than keep him on the fringes of the Test squad.

The stakes are high. India were fifth in the World Test Championship 2025-27 standings when the squad was announced. A Test series away from home against a side with a strong record in its own conditions will test the depth the selectors have built over the past few months. Suthar and the others dropped will have to wait for the next opening, while the senior group gets the chance to turn WTC points into progress.

For Indian fans, the lesson is that a good performance does not guarantee a place when conditions and fitness change the balance of the squad. Suthar's numbers show he is a serious long-term prospect, and he is likely to come back into the reckoning when India play on turning tracks.