Reports: Shikhar Dhawan to be dropped for WI series
Shikhar Dhawan never ceases to surprise. Having bombed in England with the bat, he suddenly found form in the Asia Cup with two hundreds, making a big statement ahead of the West Indies series.
However, if reports are to be believed, he is likely to be excluded from the Test setup and could be replaced by uncapped batsmen Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal for the Windies series.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the selection committee, originally scheduled to pick the team on Wednesday, will drop the 32-year-old and could push for the young Shaw's debut at Rajkot.
Dhawan has a history of misfiring in series abroad but also tends to find form soon just ahead of an important tournament. Case in point being the England series in 2014 and the Australia tour just before the World Cup in 2015 - He averaged over 50 in ODIs between England and Australia, and had a fruitful World Cup as well.
The selection committee's meeting got postponed to after the Asia Cup final - the members are still waiting for reports on Ravichandran Ashwin and Ishant Sharma's fitness, which gives them the opportunity to keep an eye on the warm-up game between the Board President's XI and West Indies, and make further choices.
Both Shaw and Agarwal have been making a case for themselves for a while now - Shaw, 18, was included in the Test squad towards the latter part of the England tour but did not get a game, while Agarwal, 27, is yet to earn an Indian cap despite being in tremendous form over the last one year.
The report also says that Rohit Sharma's Test career could continue to remain stalled - it was against the Windies that Rohit scored a century on debut, but having managed just two more centuries after that, despite several opportunities, means that he might have to stay content with playing only limited-overs cricket for now.