Five debatable selections under Virat Kohli in Tests

#5 Shikhar Dhawan ahead of Cheteshwar Pujara

Against England, Birmingham, 1-4 August 2018

Shikhar Dhawan was out cheaply in both the innings

Not picked by any team in the Indian Premier League, Cheteshwar Pujara, Team India’s Test specialist, opted for a County stint with Yorkshire to prepare for the Test series against England. The good run of form in the previous couple of seasons halted as he went through a very lean patch scoring just 172 runs at an average of 14.33 in the six County games. He had poor scores in the warm-up game too. Despite of all this, the tremendous success he had for India recently and the ability to grind out the new ball in seaming conditions made him the most ideal candidate at No.3 position.

The team management however went for a left-right opening combination of Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay and opted for the in-form opener KL Rahul at No.3. Interestingly, Shikhar who was selected ahead of Pujara had also fared poorly in the warm-up match getting out for a duck in both the innings. The Indian batting except Virat Kohli faltered as India lost the match by a narrow margin of 31 runs. The Delhi left-hander as well as No.3 Rahul could score just 39 and 17 runs respectively across both the innings increasing the demand for Pujara’s inclusion for the second Test.