Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar picked his Team India 11 for theupcoming clash. Speaking to Sports Talk, Gavaskar laid out this final Indian XI which according to him could line-up for the first Test. In the list, he decided to leave out young batter Shubman Gill at the expense of batters like Shreyas Iyer and Hanuma Vihari. Gavaskar said that Gill’s lack of match practice was the primary reason why he decided to not pick him.
When asked about his XI Gavaskar said, “Rohit (Sharma), Mayank (Agarwal), (Hanuma) Vihari, (Virat) Kohli, Shreyas (Iyer), (Rishabh) Pant, (Ravindra) Jadeja, (Ravichandran) Ashwin, (Mohammed) Shami, (Jasprit) Bumrah, Umesh (Yadav)
“He has not played any international matches for some time. He has no match practice as he hasn’t even played in the Ranji Trophy. If you have to play for the Indian team, then you need to have some practice under your belt. Yes, he has a lot of ability and there are no questions about that but form is also important,” he said.
Gavaskar went ahead with Mayank due to his consistent outings in the past at home and also his knack of scoring “big runs” in Indian conditions.
“Mayank Agarwal should open because he always gets big runs when playing at home. He might not have scored a lot of runs away from home but he scores big centuries when he plays in India. And I have chosen Hanuma Vihari at number 3 because he batted so well in the one opportunity he got in South Africa. He batted so well with the lower order batters and he should get an opportunity,” he added.
Promoted
Speaking about Shreyas, Gavaskar sounded extremely sure about the in-form batter’s presence in the playing XI due to his brilliant start to Test cricket in recent times.
“Shreyas Iyer is in great form as he showed in the T20I series and he also made a great start to his Test career against New Zealand. So, I think this should be our top 5 for the match.”
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