Changed as requested in #52716 and added test for checking this issue… (#52796)

* Changed as requested in #52716 and added test for checking this issue #52749

* Changed as requested in #52716 and added test for checking this issue

Author: NikolayBoev

pandas/io/excel/_base.py

@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@
 names : array-like, default None
     List of column names to use. If file contains no header row,
     then you should explicitly pass header=None.
-index_col : int, list of int, default None
+index_col : int, str, list of int, default None
     Column (0-indexed) to use as the row labels of the DataFrame.
     Pass None if there is no such column.  If a list is passed,
     those columns will be combined into a ``MultiIndex``.  If a

pandas/tests/io/excel/test_readers.py

@@ -340,6 +340,14 @@ def test_index_col_label_error(self, read_ext):
                 usecols=["A", "C"],
             )
 
+    def test_index_col_str(self, read_ext):
+        # see gh-52716
+        result = pd.read_excel("test1" + read_ext, sheet_name="Sheet3", index_col="A")
+        expected = DataFrame(
+            columns=["B", "C", "D", "E", "F"], index=Index([], name="A")
+        )
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
     def test_index_col_empty(self, read_ext):
         # see gh-9208
         result = pd.read_excel(