It is difficult to be in Cheteshwar Pujara’s shoes right now. The veteran has once again been ignored for India selection, despite scoring heavily in the ongoing Ranji Trophy for Saurashtra. On Friday too, in the fifth round of the tournament, Pujara scored yet another ton against Rajasthan, but that knock had hardly any effect on the selectors.
Just to be clear, Pujara is the third-highest run-scorer this year in the Ranji Trophy, and has amassed 648 runs in six matches. That also includes a score of 243 in the match against Jharkhand. If that is not enough, he has amassed those runs at an average of 81.
India Needed Solidity in Virat Kohli’s Absence
On Saturday, the BCCI released the squad for the last three Tests, and former India skipper Virat Kohli continued to be out of the team. Now in his absence, Team India certainly needed a solid batsman like Pujara in the middle-order, who could hold the fort from one end.
As has been the case in the first two Tests, India has shown a tendency to lose wickets in a bunch. In the Hyderabad Test, none of the Indian batsmen could withstand the pressure as the team lost by 28 runs. Come the second, barring Shubman Gill, all the batsmen failed in the second innings.
It is not like Pujara is a newbie, and would have faced any difficulty against the English, but has played 103 Tests for the country, scoring 7195 runs at an average of 43.60. Against England, he has played 27 Tests, and scored 1778 runs at an average close to 40.
INDIA Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), KS Bharat (WK), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep.
