Puducherry Series Puts Hardik, Padikkal and Gaikwad on Trial

The BCCI named Devdutt Padikkal and Ruturaj Gaikwad as India A captains on September 9, and listed Hardik Pandya in the one-day squad with a fitness asterisk. All five games against Australia A sit in Puducherry, from September 22 to October 11.

The matches run beside India’s home ODIs against West Indies and two other national events, and they give selectors a live look at Hardik, at the Test No. 3 job, and at a white-ball side Gaikwad can actually lead.

BCCI Splits the Armband Across Two Formats

Honorary Secretary Devajit Saikia signed the advisory the same morning. The Men’s Selection Committee picked separate 15-man groups for two multi-day matches and three one-day games, both against Australia A, both in Puducherry.

Padikkal captains the four-day side, with Sai Sudharsan as vice-captain. Gaikwad captains the 50-over side, with Padikkal as his deputy. Only three names sit in both XIs: Padikkal, Sudharsan and wicketkeeper Kumar Kushagra.

Hardik is in the one-day 15, marked subject to fitness clearance. Fast bowler V Vyshak carries the same mark on the four-day list. The board posted the squads from its official account.

🚨 News 🚨

India A squad announced for home series against Australia A, comprising two multi-day matches and three one-day games in Puducherry.

Details 🔽https://t.co/qv3pB2OLhj pic.twitter.com/svfhQbnEoV

— BCCI (@BCCI) September 9, 2026

Reading that armband as a senior recall is a habit, and it showed up within minutes of the post. Gaikwad’s job is narrower. He was kept out of the four-day games that clash with India’s West Indies ODIs, then handed the 50-over side that starts three days after that series ends.

A Calendar That Emptied the Usual Names

Last year’s India A group against Australia A still had senior Test names in it. This four-day 15 does not. The dates collide with the Asian Games T20 tournament from September 24 to October 3 and with the Irani Cup from October 1 to 5, so a string of obvious candidates were never free.

Seam bowler Anshul Kamboj, offspinner Tanush Kotian and wicketkeeper N Jagadeesan are the only other members of that 15 who have been in recent India squads, besides Padikkal and Sudharsan. The rest is domestic cricket: Aman Mokhade, Ayush Pandey, Yash Rathod, Shaik Rasheed, Shams Mulani, Tushar Deshpande, Praful Hinge, Nachiket Bhute, Kushagra, Jagadeesan and the asterisked Vyshak.

India’s senior white-ball calendar sits on top of the same fortnight. Afghanistan T20Is begin on September 13. Three home ODIs against West Indies are scheduled for September 27 in Thiruvananthapuram, September 30 in Guwahati and October 3 in New Chandigarh. The second unofficial Test in Puducherry runs September 29 to October 2, which is the same window as the second West Indies ODI and the start of the Irani Cup.

THE PUDUCHERRY WINDOW

That grid is why the four-day squad looks young and why the one-day squad looks heavy. The red-ball games had to be built from whoever was not in Japan, not in the Irani Cup, and not in the West Indies party. The 50-over games open after that pile-up, so the board could put Gaikwad, Rajat Patidar and, if the doctors allow it, Hardik in the same dressing room.

Hardik Pandya’s Place Comes With an Asterisk

Hardik has not played an ODI since the Champions Trophy final in March 2025. He sat out the format through the T20 World Cup in February and March, then spent the rest of the year trying to get his body past the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.

The last competitive cricket he played was IPL 2026 for Mumbai Indians. Back spasms cut into that campaign. A leg strain at the CoE then ruled him out of the Afghanistan ODIs in June. Selectors have kept him in the 50-over plan because the next World Cup is a seam-allrounder’s tournament, and they still see him as the man who can bowl those overs in southern African conditions.

The ICC has put that World Cup across South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia from October 4 to November 21, 2027, with 14 teams and 12 host cities. Puducherry is not Johannesburg. It is the first place the board has been willing to write his name again, and even there the name comes with a star.

HARDIK PANDYA’S ROAD BACK

1. IPL 2026: Back spasms interrupt his Mumbai Indians season, the last competitive cricket he has played.
2. June 2026: A leg strain at the CoE rules him out of the Afghanistan ODIs.
3. September 9, 2026: Named in the India A one-day 15, subject to fitness clearance.
4. October 6, 9 and 11: Three one-dayers in Puducherry if that clearance comes through.

VVS Laxman, speaking on the CoE’s return-to-play process, has already described the gate Hardik still has to pass. The centre does not sign a player off on gym numbers alone.

The process starts with diagnosing the injury and finishes with a player being declared fit after the two RTP matches we have.

VVS Laxman, BCCI Centre of Excellence

On the same page he added that a player is declared fit after the two RTP matches only if the benchmark is met, or has got better. Until then, he said, they do not release anyone. India A is useful only if that loop is finished. A name on a 15 is not a medical stamp.

Why Padikkal Leads and Sudharsan Deputises

Padikkal has the four-day armband because of what he did in Sri Lanka in August, in the slot Sudharsan had owned. Sudharsan was ruled out of that Test tour on August 9 with a toe injury. Sarfaraz Khan joined the squad as cover. Padikkal walked in at No. 3 and did not give the job back.

He made 167 off 230 balls in Galle, his first Test hundred, and India won that match by 165 runs. In Colombo he made 117 off 193 as India declared at 503 for 9. He finished the two-Test trip as India’s leading run-scorer with 328, took Player of the Series, and India won 1-0. A warm-up 142 not out off 164 balls against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI had already sat on the file.

Sudharsan is still in both A squads and is Padikkal’s deputy in whites. That is a live argument, not a courtesy title. The two left-handers now share a dressing room in Puducherry, one with the armband and the recent hundreds, the other with the original No. 3 claim and a toe that has had time to settle. Sarfaraz, who was on that Sri Lanka Test list, is in neither A squad.

Shaik Rasheed and Yash Rathod get the longer look that a stripped four-day group allows. Kushagra and Jagadeesan split the gloves. Mulani and Kotian take the spin overs. If Vyshak is cleared, the seam attack has a fourth body beside Kamboj, Deshpande, Hinge and Bhute. That is not a finished Test XI. It is two four-day matches against an Australia A side that is not treating the trip as a holiday.

Gaikwad’s One-Day Group Looks Like a Second India

The 50-over squad is built for a different job. Gaikwad leads it. Padikkal is vice-captain. Sudharsan stays. Patidar, the Royal Challengers batter who already captains in the IPL, walks into the middle order. Hardik is the allrounder if the CoE lets him board.

Around them sit IPL names who need India overs that the senior ODI side, packed with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill, cannot spare. Fast bowler Yash Thakur made his T20I debut in Zimbabwe in July and is in this 15 for 50-over work. The rest of the bowling group is Gurjapneet Singh, Arshad Khan and Arshin Kulkarni, with Nishant Sindhu and Vipraj Nigam in the mix and Naman Dhir as another batting allrounder.

THE ONE-DAY NAMES WITH INDIA TIME

• Ruturaj Gaikwad: Captain for October 6, 9 and 11, kept off the four-day list that clashes with the West Indies ODIs.
• Hardik Pandya: The only centrally contracted allrounder in the 15, and the only one whose place is still a medical question.
• Rajat Patidar: Middle-order batter with IPL captaincy already on his CV, picked only for the white-ball leg.
• Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh: Top-order and keeper-batter options who need 50-over minutes the senior side will not give them this fortnight.
• Yash Thakur: Fast bowler adding 50-over overs after a T20I debut in Zimbabwe in July.

Gaikwad leading Hardik, if both take the field, will look odd only to people who still treat India A as a kids’ league. The board has used the gap after October 3 to run a second 50-over India, with a captain who was free and an allrounder who has to prove he can last three games in six days.

Australia Sent Its Test Contenders to Puducherry

Australia A arrived in the planning as a serious shortlist, not a development extra. Cricket Australia named the four-day group on August 31 and said outright that these are contenders for the next Border-Gavaskar tour, a five-Test trip to India in January.

Peter Handscomb, 35, is the oldest name and has not played a Test since the 2023 tour of India. Sam Konstas, Nathan McSweeney and offspinner Todd Murphy, all Test-capped, are back. So are Ashes-winning quicks Brendan Doggett and Jhye Richardson. Nine of the players who featured in last year’s four-day matches in Lucknow return. McSweeney, Josh Philippe, Murphy, Konstas, Liam Scott and Jack Edwards sit in both Australia A squads.

Selection boss George Bailey did not dress the trip up as a warm-up against kids.

It’s a strong representation of players who will be in contention to be part of the group we take to India next year or see as having potential for further opportunities into the future.

George Bailey, Australia selection boss, Cricket Australia

Bailey also called these tours part of building a game for subcontinent conditions. Konstas already has a hundred from last year’s Lucknow four-dayer. McSweeney made 74 and 85 not out in the second match of that trip. India A won that four-day series 1-0 and the one-dayers 2-1. Padikkal’s 150 in the first unofficial Test that year was the innings that pushed him toward a senior call. The sequel is in a smaller ground, with a thinner Indian red-ball group and a thicker Australian one.

The first ball in Puducherry is on September 22, 13 days after Saikia’s advisory. Hardik’s three one-dayers sit in October, and only if the CoE’s return-to-play file is closed. Padikkal and Sudharsan will share a dressing room before they share a Test team again. Gaikwad will run a 50-over side that looks, on paper, like the spare India the calendar finally allowed.