The transition has begun. The retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from red-ball cricket means the selection for the England tour is the most important one in years, and perhaps the most difficult for Ajit Agarkar and his committee.
I have three main points of interest leading into the meeting. Firstly, is it the end of the road for Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, and is it now final that we won’t see them play for India again? With Kohli and Rohit not there, one of them could have had a slim chance of being picked. Will the selectors want to look back as a stopgap measure for an all-important tour, or are they convinced there is enough in the cupboard to look beyond these veterans?
At this point, the most likely answer is that we aren’t seeing either of them in the team.
Second, will they go back to Mohammed Shami and give him one more opportunity in Test cricket? Has Shami done enough to convince them that his body can take the load of five-day cricket? For, if he isn’t picked here, one doesn’t see how Shami can make it back in the red-ball format in the future.
The third news point is who is picked as India’s first-choice spinner? Will the selectors go for someone like Kuldeep Yadav who is a genuine wicket-taker and can be a handful at venues like The Oval, or will they make a defensive call by picking Washington Sundar? In Australia, Sundar was a wrong selection in Sydney and it actually did not work for India. Someone like Shardul Thakur would have been hugely handy in Sydney, and a few more runs or a couple of wickets could have meant India finished the series 2-2. That’s why the spinner call is that much more important for the England tour.
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The rest of the players pick themselves. With no Kohli and no Rohit, the top four is likely to be Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill. Whether Karun Nair will be picked as a back-up is the key debate.
In bowling, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj are automatic choices. Will India pick Arshdeep Singh as a left-arm option who can also swing the ball late, or will they go with Prasidh Krishna or Harshit Rana or a left-field choice like Anshul Kamboj? And, as mentioned above, what about Shami?
If Pujara and Rahane aren’t picked, it will indeed be the end for both these players. And in such a case, I will remember Pujara for the two tours of Australia where he chose pain over getting out and played stellar hands for India. He was prepared to look ugly, and was the best Indian batter in 2018 by a mile. In 2021, he provided the solidity that India needed for the flamboyance of Rishabh Pant to take centre stage. The perfect support cast. It has been a very fine career, but all good things do have an expiry date as well.
The question is: who will do the Pujara job in England? No one was able to in Australia and the eventual result, 1-3, was largely due to the fragility in the Indian batting.
In sum, could today, May 24, mark a new beginning for Indian cricket?
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