Either Agarwal or Rahul will get a chance to open Rohit Sharma After the Shubman GillA leg injury had made availability uncertain for the first Test against England on 4 August. Sharma himself had failed to go beyond 30 runs in the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) against New Zealand.
When the team was announced last month, questions were already being raised about the depth of the back. On the other hand, Gill’s injury has made the situation worse.
Right-handed Easwaran was not even among the top five run-scorers for Bengal Ranji Trophy In 2019-20, the tournament was played for the last time.
His only first-class innings in the 2019-20 season came during the Duleep Trophy – 153.
KL Rahul, who recently underwent surgery for appendicitis, has not played a single Test since August-September 2019. Although he traveled with the team to Australia for a four-Test series, which India won 2–1, he could not. An opportunity. Actually, he got injured before the last two Tests.
Rahul had played all the Tests when India last toured England, but he managed to score a few runs – 37 and 149 – in the final Test at the Oval. Also he struggled against the moving ball.
Mayank Agarwal, who had a bad time as an opener in Australia (with scores of 17, 9, 0, 5), hasn’t tried again since. He did not appear in any of the four Test matches against England at home.
It focuses on the decision of the selectors to be out Prithvi Shaw Or even Shikhar Dhawan, who has Test experience, from the standby players list. Both Dhawan and Shaw are in Sri Lanka with India’s limited overs team.
Shaw, in fact, was ruled out after failing in the first Test in the pink-ball Test in Adelaide, Australia, which crippled the entire Indian batting.
Former national selector Sarandeep Singh had recently disagreed on Easwaran’s selection.
“I am shocked by Easwaran’s selection. I thought Prithvi Shaw is an experienced player at the international level, and has played Tests. He is in form at present as well. He should have been included. I thought about Devdutt Padikkal as well. Must have thought, because you need to reward home performance as well,” Sarandeep Singh, who was part of the previous selection committee, told IANS in a recent chat.
If Gill does not recover in time and misses not only the first but also the second Test, there is a high chance that Easwaran will be called up in the main squad.
The selectors, if pressured, can send Shaw to England soon after the Sri Lanka tour, but it will be a lengthy process and he may not be available before the third Test.
Right now, everything depends on how the Sharma-Agarwal-Rahul trio performs.
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