Leg-spinner Varun Chakravarthy’s failure to clear fitness tests has ruled him out while pacer T Natarajan is racing against time to be battle-ready, making him doubtful for at least the early part of India’s five-match T20 series against England starting here on Friday.

Chakravarthy has repeatedly failed to clear the fitness test at the National Cricket Academy at Bangalore while yorker specialist Natarajan is yet to join the squad here due to an apparent “shoulder niggle”.