India defines XI for Adelaide Test: Shaw, Saha and Ashwin in the starting lineup

India Defines Its Initial Eleven for the Adelaide Test

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 considered two days before the match: whether to continue backing the energetic Shaw, whether to play 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, as Shubman Gill performed better in the two tour matches, impressing figures like Allan Border and Sunil Gavaskar. 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 Gavaskar and Border. It is understood, however, that with a settled middle order, India also wanted continuity at the top and stuck with the starter.

Similarly, the Test’s titular spinner, especially with the absence of Ravindra Jadeja due to injury and concussion, kept his place. The last time India chose not to play Ashwin in an opening match of the series was on the 2014-15 Australia tour, a decision that was criticized for testing Karn Sharma, whose lack of experience was noted on a field where Australia’s spinner, Nathan Lyon, proved to be the one who changed the course of the game. While it’s reasonable to play Ashwin, on this occasion, one could have argued against playing a spinner at all 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 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 a little by Jadeja, during this decade.

In the case of the wicketkeeper, however, India dropped the incumbent 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