Stats: Players who made a Triple century but did not play in the next Test

On the morning of the opening day of the one-off Test between India and Bangladesh at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, everybody waited in bated breath for Virat Kohli to just confirm one decision of which a big hint he had given the earlier day in the pre-game press conference.

When asked about who would bat for his side at the Number 5 slot, the skipper without revealing directly said that Rahane would walk into the side when fit and there was no choice in that case but to leave Karun Nair out.

At the toss, that decision of the management was confirmed as Nair made way for Rahane in the team.

That decision now puts the Karnataka batsman puts in an elite list of players, who were dropped after making no less than a triple hundred in their previous list and here we take a look at those names, who had face the brunt:

4.Sir Len Hutton

Among the greatest players to play in the 20^th century, Sir Len Hutton was one of the first players to be dropped after having made a triple hundred in a Test match. The right-hander compiled a brilliant 364 against Australia at the Oval in the fifth and final Ashes Test of 1938 as the hosts put up a mammoth 903 on the board. Then led by the bowlers, they dismissed the Australians cheaply in both innings to win the game by an innings and 579 runs.

That very summer, the England team packed their bags and left for a tour to five-Test tour to South Africa and prior to the first Test at Johannesburg, they faced up to a Transvaal side in a domestic game and facing up to Eric Davies, Hutton was knocked out by the bowler, which forced him to miss the game at the Wanderers.

Hutton went to score two centuries in that series, which his side won by a margin of 1-0.

3.Inzamam-Ul-Haq

A batting great and one of the most important cogs in the Pakistan batting line-up during the 1990’s and 2000’s, Inzamam-Ul-Haq was a much different player to a lot of his contemporaries.

A bulky figure, who stood on the wicket with a chewing gum constant in his mouth, Inzy might have come across as a laidback, almost lackadaisical batsman, but when he decided to go after the bowlers, there were few who could be as lethal as him in the middle.

One of those instances, when he went after the bowling was against New Zealand at the Gadaffi Stadium in 2002, when he took the attack to the cleaners, making 329 runs in an overall score of 643 and help his side eventually win by a margin of an innings and 324 runs.

Inzy got to that score in a mere 436 balls, at a strike-rate of 75, which was not often heard those days in Test cricket and paved the way for a crushing Pakistan win.

However, in the next Test that his side played against Australia, Inzy could not feature in the game since he had to undergo a surgery on a troublesome heel and in his absence, Pakistan lost the game by 41 runs to the Aussies, despite putting a good fight with the bat.

2.Andy Sandham

England opener Andy Sandham suffered perhaps the worst fallback if you may say for having made a huge score and then not play in the next game. During the 4^th Test against the West Indies at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St.Johns, Santham made 325, which was also the first ever triple ton in a Test match, in a team total of 849 all out to completely take any result out of the game.

Then the England bowlers got into the act, dismissing the hosts for 286 before the batsman once again put on the runs. Chasing a colossal 836 runs in the final innings, the Windies batsman put in a much better showing, amassing 408 for 5 in the final innings.

Despite making 375 runs in the game, Santham did not play again for England and it only added further sadness to what was already a forgettable Test.

1.Karun Nair

During the five-match series against England last year, Ajinkya Rahane was forced to miss the final two Tests at Mumbai and Chennai and as a result, it was Karun Nair, who took his pot in the middle-order.

After failing in the game at the Wankhede Stadoium, the right-hander came back in the best possible fashion in the next game at the Chidambaram Stadium, where he made not a century, but a triple century to join an elite group of players.

It was an innings filled with strokes to all corners of the ground and one that saw the birth of a new star.

However, in the first Test since that epic knock, Nair found himself on the sidelines for the one-off Test against Bangladesh as the team decided to bring Rahane back into the scheme of things and he became the latest entrant into the club of players, who didn’t feature in the next Test after having made a triple ton in the previous one.