England vs India 2018: Sourav Ganguly reveals his choice of openers for Test series

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly feels that the team should go with the opening pair of Murali Vijay and KL Rahul in the five-match Test series against England, the first of which starts on Wednesday (1st August) at Edgbaston.

Team India have gone in with three full-time openers in KL, Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan. Though the latter scored a century in the last Test he played, against Afghanistan in Bengaluru, he was dismissed for a duck in both the innings of the tour match against Sussex.

The other two openers, on the contrary, scored a half-century each in the first innings. KL was unbeaten on 36 in the second innings when the game was called off while Vijay didn't bat.

Ganguly, however, didn't talk about the recent records of the batsmen but highlighted that Dhawan has not been able to replicate his ODI performances in overseas Test matches and thus should be left out of the squad.

“I would go with Murali Vijay and KL Rahul as openers in the Test series,” Ganguly said.

“Shikhar Dhawan is a good ODI player, and he was in decent touch during the ODI series as well, however, when he opens in Test cricket in overseas conditions, he doesn’t have a good record, be it South Africa, England or Australia,” he added.

Virat Kohli and the team management have a big decision to make come Wednesday as the first Test might as well set the tone for the rest of the series and openers, in conditions like those in England, will have a big role to play in the outcome of the competition.

Ganguly feels that it would be interesting to see which combination does the team management decides to go ahead with.

“In India, he scores hundreds in Test cricket ... it will be interesting to see the team management’s decision on this,” he said.