Last night, the Indian selectors announced a sixteen-member squad to face Sri Lanka in a three-Test series that starts later this month. This series will be crucial for Virat Kohli and co. as they are set to tour overseas in the next couple of years and the team management will get an idea on how to approach the overseas assignments.
Rohit Sharma, who injured his hamstring in the ODI series against New Zealand, makes a comeback into the Test team after nine months. Opener Abhinav Mukund, fast bowlers Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Shami and Chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav retain their place in the squad.
First-choice openers Murali Vijay and KL Rahul are set to return after undergoing surgeries at the end of the four-match series against Australia. The selectors also dropped a few names from the squad that faced Australia with Karun Nair being the notable omission.
Squad for the Test series against Sri Lanka: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Wriddhiman Saha, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund.
Despite a fairly strong squad, a few upcoming stars will miss out on the tour. Here are five of them:
#5 Shreyas Iyer
One question every Indian fan will ask is that how long should Shreyas Iyer wait before he makes his debut for the Indian team. The Mumbaikar has been impressive in the Indian domestic circuit for the last three seasons and yet, hasn’t represented the national team even once.
He was drafted into the Indian team for the fourth Test against Australia as a replacement for an injured Virat Kohli but didn’t feature in the game as the team management decided to go in with an extra bowler in Kuldeep. Along with Karun Nair, Shreyas Iyer was excluded from the Indian team for the Sri Lanka tour as Rohit Sharma regained full fitness and gets back his place in the middle order.
It is unfair on the Indian selectors to keep someone like Iyer waiting in the wings for a long time. With India scheduled to play overseas in the next couple of years, having a backup batsman like Iyer in the squad for the Sri Lanka tour wouldn’t have been a bad idea.
#4 Karun Nair
Last year, Karun Nair became the second Indian batsman after Virender Sehwag to score a triple-century in Test cricket. After that, one would have thought that he had sealed his place in the Indian XI. It would have been the case with any other team in the world, but not the Indian team as he was dropped for the following Test match to accommodate Ajinkya Rahane in the playing XI.
Also read: Karun Nair needed his triple ton to buy his dream car
Karun averages 62.33 with the bat in the limited Test matches he has played. As they say, sometimes numbers might be misleading.
Here is the reason: His scores after the triple century were 26, 0, 23 and 5, something that suggests that he struggled against the visiting Australian team. If you take out the knock of 303, Karun will have managed a grand total of 71 runs in 6 innings at an average of less than 12.
Also, Rohit Sharma is back from injury and takes his place in the Indian Test squad. This might be the reason why the selectors might have dropped Karun for the upcoming series.
#3 Jayant Yadav
Jayant Yadav impressed everyone with his performances in the England series as he starred with both bat and ball. With the ball, he picked wickets at regular intervals and with the bat, he looked solid, which is evident from his century in the fourth Test in Mumbai that helped India take a big lead and put the visitors under pressure.
He was a part of the playing XI for the first Test against Australia in Pune where the visitors humiliated the hosts and the off-spinner was forced to sit out of the next three Test matches as the team management wanted to play an extra batsman.
Kuldeep Yadav, who was preferred ahead of Jayant for the fourth Test, impressed everyone with his performance in the Test and the recently-concluded tour of West Indies and got the nod ahead of the Haryana offie as the third spinner in the side.
Extra cover: Kuldeep Yadav non-selection in Ranchi Test alleged reason for Anil Kumble-Virat Kohli spat
#2 Amit Mishra
Amit Mishra has been travelling with the Indian Test team for the past two years, but, unfortunately, he was hardly given a start by the Indian team management. He was in the playing XI when India last toured Sri Lanka, was a part of the squad for the South Africa series, tour of West Indies and the Indian home season that included series against New Zealand, England and Bangladesh before he was withdrawn from the squad ahead of the one-off Test against India's South Asian rivals.
In spite of being in the squad for 15 matches, he didn’t feature in the playing XI in even five of those, thanks to the heroics of Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja and the emergence of Jayant Yadav and Kuldeep Yadav. For the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka, Mishra was dropped from the team at the expense of Kuldeep and to be fair, the team never gave the leggie a longer run in Tests before dropping him.
Mishra is very unlucky not to play a lot of matches for the Indian team in whites as he has a good track record in the limited number of matches he played in his career.
#1 Shikhar Dhawan
Shikhar Dhawan was not a regular in the Indian Test squad of late as he was very inconsistent in the longer format. He got injured during the second Test against New Zealand in Kolkata and didn’t play a single Test since then.
Dhawan’s inconsistency alone is not the reason for his absence from the Test team. His fellow opening batsmen, KL Rahul and Murali Vijay have done really well since then and have sealed their spot at the top of the order.
After the successful ICC Champions Trophy, one would have thought that Dhawan might make a comeback to the Indian Test team as the third opener, but the selectors have decided to persist with Abhinav Mukund for the role, like they did for the series against Bangladesh and Australia.
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