Indian cricket team in Zimbabwe in 2015 that the tour will go ahead with India fielding a second-strength side, with the selection committee meeting in Delhi on 29 June to pick the squads. Indian team director Ravi Shastri missed the tour due to professional commitments that were agreed before the BCCI extended his contract. The Indian squad was announced on 29 June as planned. On 6 July Indian bowler Karn Sharma was ruled out of the tour after fracturing a finger in his left hand. There was no replacement for him. This left the Indian team with only two spin options of Harbhajan Singh and Axar Patel.
Harbhajan Singh Harbhajan was selected for North in the Duleep Trophy, but his early-season form deserted him. He took five wickets at 39.00 in two matches, although he did continue his productive run with the bat, scoring 130 runs at 32.50 with three scores above 35. Despite the superior statistics of other bowlers in domestic cricket, Harbhajan was the selected for the Indian Board President's XI to play the touring Australian cricket team ahead of the Tests. He managed only 1/127, and was ignored for the first two Tests before being selected to make his Test debut in the Third Test against