The Indian team management on 28 June, through their administrative manager Girish Dongre, had sought two openers as replacements.
Although chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma did not send any formal reply to that mail till a few days back, the selection committee was in no mood to send any replacements with four openers already in the UK.
A senior BCCI source said on the condition of anonymity, “Prithvi will be in Sri Lanka and will complete the six-match series by July 26. They have been selected and they should fulfill their commitments.
“Possibilities can be explored once the Sri Lanka series is over, but nothing is there yet,” the source said.
The team management wanted two openers as Abhimanyu Easwaran’s technique did not inspire the highest confidence.
Also when news surfaced that he was not comfortable facing the team’s throwdown specialist Raghavendra aka Raghu.
However, some questions are being asked in the corridors of BCCI.
A senior official privy to the developments said, “Why would KL Rahul be considered a purely middle-order batsman when he has opened for India in the past? Same for everyone who has opened in the UK. There should be opportunity and equal risk.”
“If Prithvi hasn’t played a long form game since Adelaide, what’s the guarantee he’ll do some magic if someone like Rahul is supposed to be on guard against Jimmy Anderson with 2000 Test runs and Stuart Broad With the new Duke,” said a former India player.
He also questioned why Easwaran should be judged only on the basis of training session or throwdown.
“The captains sit in the selection meetings and when Chetan and his teammates were sending Easwaran to England, why didn’t they protest? Who stopped them from expressing their protest,” he questioned.
“Now if you have picked Easwaran, he has the first right to be in the main team. But he comes into the picture only after Rohit (Sharma), Rahul and Mayank (Agarwal) fail and we are in such a negative mood. Why would you pursue ideas? he said.
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