Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, and Prithvi Shaw have been selected to represent India in the Adelaide Test. Umesh Yadav will complete the trio of fast bowlers. These were the main questions India was considering two days before the match: whether to continue supporting the energetic Shaw, whether to include a spinner and persist with the safer option of Ashwin, and which of the wicketkeepers should play. On the eve of the day-night Test, they cleared up all doubts by naming the starting eleven.
Shaw has been under pressure, with Shubman Gill showing better performance in the two tour matches, impressing cricket legends. However, Shaw was the opening batsman and proved in a four-run innings in New Zealand that he can be destructive. He scored 0, 19, 40 and 3 in the two tour matches, but more than the scores, it was his loose shots that worried the experts. It is understood, however, that with a settled middle order, India wanted continuity at the top and stuck with the starter.Similarly, the team’s titular spinner, especially with Ravindra Jadeja’s absence due to injury, kept his place. The last time India chose not to include Ashwin in the opening match of a series was on the 2014-15 Australia tour, a decision that was criticized for giving experience to Karn Sharma, whose lack of experience was noticeable on a pitch where Australia’s spinner, Nathan Lyon, proved to be the deciding factor.
While it’s reasonable to play Ashwin, this time it might have been justified not to play a spinner in the first match of the series because in day-night Tests in Australia, spinners have averaged 49 despite Lyon’s superlative average of 25 in these matches. Lyon’s success is perhaps a sign that world-class spinners have the opportunity to correct these statistics based on a small sample of seven Tests. There is no doubt that Ashwin and Lyon have been the top two spinners in Test cricket, followed only slightly by Jadeja, during this decade.
In the case of the wicketkeeper, India dropped the incumbent Pant, who has been preferred to Saha in Tests outside of Asia, where most of the wicketkeeping is done standing up. It is in India where the team management believes that Saha’s superior wicketkeeping skills come into play when facing spinners. The team management seems to have decided that the pink ball does a lot and will require a more established pure wicketkeeper. And despite Pant’s century in the SCG warm-up, he had an ordinary tour of New Zealand, scoring 60 runs in four innings. He has not yet played for India in any international cricket since then.
Yadav was the favorite to be India’s third fast bowler, replacing the injured Ishant Sharma. Not only does he have Test experience, this is his fourth tour of Australia, but he also impressed in the only warm-up match he played, taking 3 for 48 and 1 for 14 and also scoring useful runs in the order.India’s Line-up: 1 Mayank Agarwal, 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli (c), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Hanuma Vihari, 7 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
