5 areas India need to address in their upcoming Test assigments
The Indian Test side is all set to begin a new journey without MS Dhoni. The man who led for almost 7 years in this format will no longer be playing Test Cricket and thus we have now officially entered ‘the Virat Kohli era’. The new skipper has already stated his ambition to win as many Test matches as possible, but it is not going to be that easy even though they will only be playing Tests at the sub-continent for a while. There are some issues to be addressed ahead of the series against Sri Lanka away and South Africa at home apart from this one-off Test against Bangladesh. Here are they:
Vijay’s opening partner
With Shikhar Dhawan not having a good time with the bat in England and Australia in Test Cricket, the team had to look beyond him. And once they did, they found KL Rahul who went on to impress everyone with his hundred in the final Test of the Border-Gavaskar series in Australia.
This would have settled the debate for now but unfortunately, the Karnataka batsman has not recovered from his illness which has forced him to miss the Bangladesh Test. With no reserve opener in the squad, the team management will likely be preferring Dhawan again to pair up with Vijay. If Dhawan scores well, this would once again open the debate regarding the second opener’s slot.
The selectors have to sit down and take a crucial decision before the team flies to Sri Lanka. If they are looking for stability, KL Rahul should get his spot back, but if they feel the need to have a left handed aggressive opener at top of the order, then Dhawan should continue as if he would be at ease in these conditions.
Handling Pujara
India needs Pujara in Test Cricket. It is as simple as that. And in order to get the best out of him, they need to play him at number 3 again. The man who is being hailed as the next wall failed to show up in England as well as in Australia.
At one point of time, the team management lost faith in him and went on to drop him for the final Test. Instead, they had Rohit Sharma batting in that position on a temporary basis. But this isn’t a long term solution. He is back on surfaces where he has literally batted the oppositon out of the game. And also his Yorkshire stint would have done his confidence a world of good.
So how India will be handling him needs to be seen as an in-form Pujara at number 3 can win you matches.