India vs West Indies 2018: A golden opportunity that India missed in the Test series
Five days and just over two sessions - pretty much the duration of the Test series between India and West Indies. India turned out to be too good a team to beat for West Indies. Barring the first day of the second Test, Windies showed no signs of a contest. They came to the second Test after a humiliating defeat in the first Test - an innings and 272 runs. They did show some signs of improvement on the first day, but faltered to take it bit further as they handed a comfortable 10-wicket victory to India in the second Test.
From India's point of view, the Test series against Windies was an important one as they had to try a lot of things before going to the Down Under - Australia - in November this year.
To be fair enough, India did try out a things or two in this series against Windies - Prithvi Shaw and Shardul Thakur were the key highlights of it. Although Thakur injured himself in the course of the game, it was good from India to bring a change in the second Test.
However, India did miss a few golden opportunities in the Test series that could have helped them to gauge themselves ahead of the much-important Test series against Australia. Thus, in this feature, we will have a look at a golden opportunity that India missed in the series.
Mayank Agarwal not playing: An opportunity lost?
After knocking the doors of the Indian selectors quite a few times, Mayank Agarwal finally got the deserved break as the selectors drafted him into the Indian Test side for the series against West Indies. However, unfortunately, Mayank didn't get a place in the playing XI for any of the Tests. If not in both the Tests, Mayank deserved to be in the playing XI for at least a Test. Well, the counter-argument would be: Shaw did brilliantly in the Test series.
Well, Prithvi deserved to be in the Indian Test team, and India did right by giving him all the games. But, Rahul could have benched in the second Test at the expense of Mayank Agarwal, especially in the second game after the former's wayward performance in the first Test. However, the Indian team went on to retain Rahul which proved futile in the second game as well. Moreover, with KL Rahul's place almost certain for Australia, this argument takes much more weight.
Had India included Mayank in the second game (at least), India might have ended the Test series with some decent opening options ahead of the much-important Test series against Australia. What could have been the worst case than Mayank failing? Well, this could have been a much-respected strategy than just not giving him a chance.
Certainly, India missed a trick here by not including Mayank Agarwal in any of the games. Because winning was not the sole priority here.