Uncapped all-rounder Saransh Jain has earned his maiden India Test call-up after replacing the injured Washington Sundar for the upcoming two-match Test series against Sri Lanka.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the squad on Tuesday, confirming that Sundar has been ruled out after sustaining an injury during the second ODI against England in Cardiff earlier this month.
India will begin the series at the Galle International Cricket Stadium on Aug. 15, with the second Test scheduled at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo from Aug. 23.
Jain made his first-class debut for Madhya Pradesh during the 2014-15 Ranji Trophy season and a left-handed batter and right-arm off-spinner and has built a reputation as a dependable bowling all-rounder in the domestic circuit.
The 33-year-old has enjoyed a good amount of success in red-ball cricket, where he claimed 188 wickets in 54 first-class matches with an average of 27.3 and strike-rate of 54.3. He has also scored 2,223 runs at a respectable average of 31.75, including two centuries and 14 half-centuries.
His performances during the 2025-26 domestic season further strengthened his case for national selection, where the all-rounder from Madhya Pradesh scored 518 runs and picked up 30 wickets in seven Ranji Trophy matches, before impressing for India A with seven wickets in two unofficial Tests against Sri Lanka A, including a four-wicket haul in the first innings of the second match.
Saransh's journey has also been shaped by personal adversity. His father, Subodh Jain, a former Madhya Pradesh Ranji cricketer who introduced him to the game, was diagnosed with mouth cancer while Jain was on an exposure tour of Australia in 2014.
The family didn't tell the news until he returned home, by which time his father had undergone surgery and chemotherapy.
Unable to speak after treatment, Subodh reportedly wrote his son a note that read, "Just focus on your game, I will get well soon." Jain has often credited those words as one of the biggest sources of motivation in his career, according to a report by Crickit.
"Firstly, I would like to mention that I come from a cricketing family. My father played Ranji for MP. My elder brother also played, and I used to go to the club for training in my initial days alongside bhaiya. Unfortunately, he had to drop his plans of playing, but I continued working on my game," Jain told Crictracker in October 2025, cited by Crickit.
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