India Looks Forward

GH on Rohit Sharma's squad

The days when squad announcements were preluded by a month of speculation seem behind us: teams these days are almost always provisional, subject to revision and reinforcement. News of the announcement of India’s eighteen for Australia was further shaded by the unfamiliar reality of a home defeat.  But the two are related: India’s lacklustre performances at Bangalore and Pune make a solid case for newer blood from Perth onwards.

Some change has already transpired.  India’s selectors have succeeded where Australia’s bowlers so many years failed, shifting Cheteshwar Pujara; years of rubbish Indian pitches have cost them Ajinkya Rahane and Shreyas Iyer, while also diminishing KL Rahul and Mohammad Siraj. Shubman Gill and Yashavsi Jaiswal have emerged, and Rishabh Pant blessedly re-emerged.  But India remain in thrall to their four eminences: captain Rohit Sharma (37), ex-captain Virat Kohli (imminently 36), Ravichandran Ashwin (38) and Ravi Jadeja (36), heroes of a thousand fights, but nearer the end than the beginning.  And I need hardly remind you what happened when India last brought a cluster of greats with too many miles on the clock.

Then there are the absences.  Of course, India were without Mohammad Shami for most of the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but they’ll miss his relentlessness and reliability, and his superb walk back to his mark: strong, brisk and manful.  Wrist spin in Australia is always useful, and Kuldeep Yadav would have been a handy option in Sydney especially.  

The choice of Abhimanyu Easwaran is a glance back to what has worked before.  Like Hanuma Vihari, he has been recognised for heaping up a mountain of domestic runs; India have missed a genuine top-order boulder, of a kind often useful in Australia, since Pujara was finally rolled away.  The Indian A squad also includes two top-class top-order batters in Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devdutt Paddikal, who if they make runs against Australia A might find themselves added to the main group given Rohit Sharma’s mooted absence from one or other of Perth or Adelaide.  Washington Sundar returns to the scene of his precocious Test debut, ahead of Axar Patel.  Prasidh Krishna brings his height and bounce somewhere that rewards them, ahead of Shardul Thakur.  Nitish Kumar Reddy arrives with accolades from the host captain. Such is India’s wealth of talent, it has also just rolled out a T20 squad that would give anyone a run for their money.

It seems that the bigger questions are less about the new than the old.  Rohit Sharma was all ‘win-some-lose-some’ in the aftermath of Pune; Gautam Gambhir wasn’t.  Virat Kohli’s numbers do not lie.  Just ask Steve Smith about the sense of lost direction that can follow a long stint as captain, and David Warner about the need for leadership as a spur.  Wankhede on Friday looms: seldom can so much have hinged on a dead Test in Asia. It is furthermore, of course, Craig Serjeant Day!

India know full well that they can do it in Australia.  But it may have to be more like 2020-21, a triumph of youth, rather than 2018-19, with its blessing of experience.

India’s Test squad: Rohit Sharma (capt), Jasprit Bumrah (vice-capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.