Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, and Prithvi Shaw have been selected to represent India in the Adelaide Test. Umesh Yadav will be the third fast bowler. These were the main questions India asked itself two days before the Test: whether to continue supporting the energetic Shaw, whether to play with 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 the confusion by naming the XI.
Shaw had been under pressure, with Shubman Gill performing better in the two tour matches, impressing prominent figures. However, Shaw was the opening batsman and demonstrated 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.
While it’s reasonable to play Ashwin, on this occasion, one could have argued against playing a spinner at all in the series opener, 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 signal that world-class spinners have a chance 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, however, India left out the regular Pant, who has been preferred to Saha in Tests outside of Asia, where most of the wicketkeeping is done standing back. It is in India where the team management believes that Saha’s superior wicketkeeping skills come into play when standing up to the 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 lower order. India XI: 1 Mayank Agarwal, 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli (capt.), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Hanuma Vihari, 7 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
