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A rare home Test defeat has already put India under pressure, and the team, which will also be without talisman Virat Kohli for the second game, suffered a double blow on Monday as middle-order prop KL Rahul and all-rounder Ravindra . Jadeja was ruled out of the contest in Visakhapatnam from Friday.
Jadeja suffered a hamstring injury during the game on Day 4 of the Hyderabad Test, while Rahul complained of pain in his right quadriceps, according to a BCCI statement.
For a team trying to embrace the challenge and positivity of Ben Stokes’ England, losing two senior players for such a crucial match sends them back to the drawing board.
The selection committee has added domestic run-getter Sarfaraz Khan, left-arm spinner Sourabh Kumar and all-rounder Washington Sundar to the team.
In Kohli’s absence, Rahul was the most experienced batsman in the middle order and scored 87 in the first innings as India took a 190-run lead. His dismissal on the fourth afternoon was part of a dramatic collapse that paved the way for England’s 28-run victory.
Rajat Patidar is now part of the team and has shown good temperament in white-ball cricket. Under normal circumstances, he should be the next taxi in the queue, but with doubts arising over the Indian batsmen’s ability to cope with spin and their reluctance to employ the various versions of the sweep shot, Sarfaraz might take a look.
Sarfaraz has been shown to have some problems in dealing with genuine pace and bounce, but with the pitch in Visakhapatnam expected to be conducive to spin, his prowess in that department could be considered useful.
As far as Jadeja’s replacement is concerned, left-wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav is already in the team. The Uttar Pradesh modifier has an impressive Test record and has the ability to confuse batsmen with the variations of it. But his inclusion would not do much for India’s batting depth. His state-mate Sourabh is an experienced player at the first-class level and could be a comparable replacement for Jadeja, who has been one of the standouts in Test cricket over the last few years.
Sourabh is no rabbit with the bat but he is untested at the highest level and with some members of the team, especially on the batting side, not having much experience, it could be a step into the unknown for the selectors. Furthermore, with a left-arm spinner like Axar Patel already part of the XI, a little variety in his spin arsenal won’t go amiss.
Sundar is rated as an all-rounder in white-ball cricket, especially in T20s, and his four previous Tests have given him three fifties and a batting average of 66.25, but he has only six wickets, each of which has earned him It has taken almost 50 races. .
If the team management is determined to continue playing the card and believes that his greater pedigree in that department will tell in the final analysis, they are likely to go for Kuldeep, who has delivered in pressure situations in the past. In that case, they will hope that the specialist batsmen they go with get enough runs on the board.
On the batting front, it remains to be seen whether the selectors are banking on the home run weight Sarfaraz brings or the impression Patidar has made in his small sample size, despite him averaging much less in first-class cricket. . .