The world is currently eyeing the final of the World Test Championship which is going to be held in Southampton and the team management is eyeing the selection of the ideal playing XI, which involves lot of complexities and many difficult decisions to be made.
The first difficult decision is to choose between Shubman Gill and Mayank Agarwal. Both are talented. The team management has invested in Shubman Gill but I will go with Mayank Agarwal. This player has experience which can be very useful to the team. There is no doubt that Rohit Sharma, Pujara, Virat, Rahane, Rishabh Pant and Ravichandran Ashwin will be a part of the playing XI. The decision to play between Hanuma Vihari and Ravindra Jadeja will not be easy for the team management. Both have good batting ability.
If Jadeja is retained, it will be only due to his batting, while Hanuma Vihari has proved himself with his great batting in the Australian tour and he can also bowl some overs. The point against him is that he is also a part-time off-spin bowler while Jadeja’s left arm goes in his favor. Among fast bowlers, Team India will come down with three bowlers. Jaspreet Bumrah and Mohammed Shami are our frontline seamers. The third fast bowler may be chosen between Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Siraj. I think Siraj is a better choice in English conditions. He has a swing that can prove to be effective in England. Siraj has variety while Ishant is a single-dimensional bowler. Well, it would have been better if the team had a left-arm fast bowler but T. Natarajan is not fit.
However, all this will depend on the current form of the players. In England, practice matches will also make the situation much clear, but this time it is certain that the team management may have to take some tough decisions.
If the BCCI has decided to send a separate team for the white ball cricket tour to Sri Lanka, we actually have a large pool of players ready. Anyway, cricket is not being played all over the world. Teams in England and Australia have conducted such experiments before.
Now Team India is also going to do experiments that are good for cricket, and for cricket lovers, they have not been watching too much cricket for a long time.
(The author is a former fast bowler of Team India and currently a cricket expert)
