Who should be the second opener for India in the first Test: Rahul or Vijay?
India's opening woes got even more pronounced during the English series. Murali Vijay was shown the door midway through the series and Shikhar Dhawan was ousted after the series got over. Third Indian opener who survived through the series by the skin of his teeth was KL Rahul, who struggled throughout the series barring the last innings of the series where he scored a hundred which was instrumental in saving his place in the Indian Test eleven.
India opened with Rahul and Prithvi Shaw against West Indies at home. Prithvi Shaw announced himself on the big stage with a bang, but Rahul just scraped through the series. Rahul's failure to capitalise against a relatively weak West Indies team at home was even more disconcerting than his failures in alien conditions of England.
Rahul's misery continued during the T20I series in Australia where he ended up scoring just 27 runs from 2 innings at a poor strike rate. The way Rahul is batting, it is quite evident that his confidence is very low at the moment. Playing KL Rahul against Australia will be a big gamble. Rahul appears to be a sitting duck at the moment against quality bowlers which Australia has in plenty.
On the other hand, Murali Vijay who was dropped during the English series went back to the grind of county cricket and got some useful runs under his belt to get back his confidence. Also, Vijay had a successful Australian tour last time around where he scored almost 500 runs during the Test series.
India needs to pick one of these two players as the second opener as Prithvi Shaw seems certain as the first choice opener. On one hand, there is Rahul who is struggling to find form and is low on confidence and on the other hand, there is Murali Vijay who has regained his form and also has a good track record on Australian pitches.
Looking at the above facts and the importance of the series for the Indian Test team, it will be a prudent decision to pick Vijay ahead of Rahul in the first Test XI, but, given the history of Virat Kohli and his team selection tactics, it won't be a surprise to see it going the other way, which if happens, will be a tad unfortunate.