The pain of being sidelined due to injuries reduced yesterday when Mumbai's Shardul Thakur made a comeback to the Indian team for the T20I series against Bangladesh, replacing injured Navdeep Saini. In Hyderabad last year, Shardul limped off 10 balls into his debut Test match against the West Indies with a right adductor tendon injury that ruled him out for seven weeks. He came back for the IPL, but had to go under the knife for an ankle injury.

However, he refused to get bogged down by the injuries. "The injury in the Test match was unfortunate and the ankle surgery was anyway due. I didn't worry about selection. It was obviously at the back of the mind, but at the end of the day, what is important is to play cricket.