India will be up against Sri Lanka for the first Test of the 3 match series starting from November 16 at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
Virat Kohli men thrashed the Lankans 9-0 in all formats of the game in their last encounter.
Since cricket is full of surprises so India won’t make a mistake of underestimating the visitors. Also, Sri Lanka side must have gained confidence after beating Pakistan 2-0 in the Test series played in UAE.
It’s always a good sign when a team is stuck in the dilemma of a selecting few from the best, it shows team’s bench strength and India is having these issues in the test from quite a bit time now.
The southpaw Shikhar Dhawan was the replacement for injured Murali Vijay on the Sri Lankan tour and KL Rahul was also unavailable for few matches due to his fitness issues. Now, with the comeback of both these openers, the team management will be in deep thinking process to choose the best two amongst the three- Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay and KL Rahul.
The first choice should be KL Rahul without any doubts in the mind, he has scored 50+ scores in the last 7 Test innings he played. It is unfortunate that he couldn’t convert them into big numbers but this is something a captain wants from his openers and Rahul is best in this format because of his consistency.
For the second choice, Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli have to make a tough call. Dhawan made his blistering comeback in the earlier Sri Lanka Test series and smashed 358 runs in just 4 innings. He played with the average of almost 90; it makes him the probable contender to open with Rahul. But with the comeback of Murli Vijay, it doesn’t seem so easy.
Vijay might not look too harmful with the strike rate but he is one of the main assets of the Indian test side, also he has the most successful Indian overseas batsman and with the upcoming overseas series coming for India, the 33-year-old batsman will be filling up the place.
