A happy opening dilemma for India
Indian Team is set to take on the mighty South Africans as the first Test match is about to take place. Team India has looked in fabulous touch throughout the entire 2017, but the biggest challenge of conquering on the versatile South African grounds is yet another embellishing task.
However, the captain Virat Kohli is faced with a major conundrum regarding the two opening batsmen. Since all the three openers KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay have lived up to the expectations of the team and stitched some solid starts together. Thus to select the best pair, some hard decisions have to be made.
Looking at the form of all the three openers, Dhawan and Rahul have put up consistently good performances and provided the team a solid start. Dhawan has put up fine performances over the year, starting 2017 with a career best of 190 and then putting two fifties back to his name in the year-end test series against Sri Lanka.
Rahul with a usurping dominion of nine test fifties to his name in the calendar year of 2017 has got the eye of the selectors to put him in the playing eleven in the series opener. On the other hand, Vijay ended the year on a high note by scoring two centuries against the Lankans and thereby stating the current form he is in.
Looking at all the factors and taking some rollback from the previous tour of South Africa, team India may put their hopes in the pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay. Apart from performing well and having some good opening partnerships at the back of their hand, they are seasoned campaigners.
Vijay has been opening regularly for India in tests and Shikhar has improved his defensive game in last few series. The duo has enjoyed batting with each other and has put up some remarkable partnerships. Apart from this, a left-right combination of these two would also factor in giving the preference to this pair. There is no other regular left-hand batsman in the team other than Jadeja who is likely to miss the opening game because of a viral infection.
Thus, all set with the series to start and captain Kohli looking to extend his winning run with a series victory in the rainbow nation, this battle of the best two sides would surely be an action-packed thrilling encounter for the cricket fans.