India vs Australia | Rohit Sharma and Prithvi Shaw get nod for Test series; Hardik Pandya dropped
Rohit Sharma and Murali Vijay have made a comeback to the Test squad for the Australia tour while Hardik Pandya have been left out due to injury concerns, the BCCI announced today. Dinesh Karthik has also found himself out of the team with the selectors choosing Parthiv Patel as the reserve keeper.
After struggling to adapt to the Test format in South Africa earlier this year, Rohit was dropped for the Afghanistan Tests before he found himself out of the squad for the England Test series as well. However, Ajinkya Rahane's disastrous returns in those matches
While Rohit's comeback is justifiable, surprisingly, Murali Vijay also made a comeback despite being dropped in England midway through the series. He had alleged that no member of the selection panel had discussed the reasons with him before taking the step. However, keeping Vijay's past record Down Under in mind, the selectors have shown their trust in him and the Tamil Nadu opener may open the innings with Prithvi Shaw, who was mighty impressive in recently concluded Windies series.
Mayank Agarwal and Mohammad Siraj might have felt unlucky as the duo failed to make it to the 18-member team despite having some insane numbers to their name in the last one year of domestic and India A games.
Squad for the 4-Test series vs Australia : Virat Kohli (C), M Vijay, KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Parthiv Patel, R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar