With Cheteshwar Pujara also scoring a century now, it has become quite difficult for the Indian selectors as well as the team management to decide what would be the playing XI of the team for the first test match against South Africa if all the players are fit.
So far in Virat Kohli’s short tenure as test captain, India has been playing with 5 specialist batsmen, an all rounder, a wicketkeeper batsman and 4 specialist bowlers and they are believed to continue with this formation for the home season too.
While, the likes of Murali Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli are the established members of the team and are the certainties in the XI, there are 4 players who are currently in contention for the other 2 batting spots and all of them have shown good form and have scored runs recently, whether it’s KL Rahul, Pujara, Shikhar Dhawan or even Rohit Sharma.
Rohit might not have a hundred to his name of late, but, he has scored a few crucial half centuries for the team.
Dhawan scored back to back hundreds against Bangladesh and then, in the first test match against Sri Lanka which was played at Galle.
KL Rahul, after justifying his selection for the Australia tour with a hundred in Sydney, scored another one in Colombo to help India level the series and has made it very hard for the management to leave him out at this point of time.
And, the same can be said for Pujara as well. He got one opportunity after waiting in the wings for long and he made the most of it. His hundred was a match winning one for India at the Sinhalese Sports Club. So, it would not be fair to bench him either.
Lots of selection headaches for India at the moment, but, you would rather want these headaches than to be in a situation where you are looking for options here and there.
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