For close to two years, efforts have been on for the Indian Test team to transition. The process has been slow, and anything but smooth. It’s only now, in the ongoing home series against an aggressive England, that the depth of Indian talent is being tested to the fullest.
Who would have thought Sarfaraz Khan, Akash Deep and Dhruv Jurel would be named together in the Indian Test squad? A scale up from India A to India in little time. With a bit of luck, each of them stands a realistic chance to debut at some stage in the five-match series.
March 2022 was the first time when the selectors made a conscious effort to ring in changes in the batting order by dropping Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, citing their diminishing returns. With no immediate results forthcoming, reverting to their experience was the easy thing to do and both were handed comebacks, which didn’t last long. Going into the current series, there was also the Virat Kohli-sized hole to fill. But the selectors resisted the temptation to go back to Pujara, who’s still racking up Ranji Trophy hundreds.
It was made official on Saturday that Kohli would not be taking any part in this five-Test series. “Virat Kohli will remain unavailable for selection for the remainder of the series due to personal reasons. The board fully respects and supports Kohli’s decision,” a BCCI statement said while announcing a 17-player squad for the last three Tests.
Never has Kohli, since he played his first home Test in Mumbai against West Indies in 2011, missed an entire home series. Shreyas Iyer, after 13 innings without a fifty to show, has been dropped. KL Rahul returns along with Ravindra Jadeja, but both have an asterisk to their names – subject to fitness. While Rahul’s recovery is known to have gone well, if the batter’s quadriceps niggle doesn’t pass the fitness test, it would mean two inexperienced names in India’s middle-order in the Rajkot Test starting on February 15 – debut for Sarfaraz and second Test for Rajat Patidar. A lightweight middle-order facing a lightweight England spin attack, both with different points to prove. The English spinners come with limited first-class experience but have been far from pushovers.
With his first hundred batting at No.3 in Visakhapatnam, Shubman Gill has finally proved that he has the credentials to step into the shoes of Pujara.
The selectors going to Sarfaraz and Patidar may appear unremarkable, but they are no ordinary moves in current times, where filling gaps with white-ball impact players in long-form cricket have become common. England does it all the time, having tried Liam Livingstone and Harry Brook. India went the same path last year, playing Suryakumar Yadav against Australia but without success. Sarfaraz and Patidar have a chance to prove that their technique is robust enough to translate domestic success into solid performances at Test level.
Forced as it may be, India’s transition is reflected throughout the squad. No one has put up their gloves to fill in for Rishabh Pant.
KS Bharat’s results so far, especially with the bat, haven’t been great. If the team management looks for change, young Dhruv Jurel could have an early initiation in international cricket.
In the bowling department, all-rounder Jadeja’s fitness may be the most closely scrutinised. Should his return from the hamstring injury he suffered in the first Test in Hyderabad be considered premature, there will be another opportunity for the reserves. Kuldeep Yadav has only got rare chances in Test cricket so far – averaging one Test every year. He would get to build on gains from the last Test, where he had four wickets to show; more importantly, he was able to make it difficult for the English batters to steal boundaries using horizontal-bat shots.
Axar Patel, except for a long probing spell against in-form opener Zak Crawley in the second innings, wasn’t up to scratch with the ball. But without Jadeja, Axar knows the team would also expect runs from him.
England’s formidable adversary in the series so far, Jasprit Bumrah, is also Rohit Sharma’s deputy. That may be an encouraging sign that the speedster remains at peak fitness. No one can definitively say at this stage though that he will play all the Tests. If his workload requires to be managed in any of the remaining Tests, uncapped Bengal pacer Akash Deep could get his chance to show his credentials at Test level, following his 11 wickets against England Lions recently, and four years of domestic toil.
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