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File photo of India’s Test cricket team.© AFP
Cheteshwar Pujara, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami missed out as Team India named squad for the two-match Test series against West Indies, starting July 12. Jaydev Unadkat kept his spot while Delhi Capitals pacer Mukesh Kumar received his maiden India call-up. Navdeep Saini too was called into the team in the longest format. While some youngsters have been called in for the two matches, the team is more or less the same with Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj and Axar Patel forming the core.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar feels that Team India has missed a “wonderful opportunity” by not giving chance to more youngsters for the Tests against West Indies. The cricket veteran suggested that the players who are certain to play ODI World Cup in October-November this year should have focussed only on playing white-ball cricket onwards.
“The World Test Championship is gone. We missed out over there. Now the next big thing really is the (ODI) World Cup in October and therefore I would have wanted for the big boys to be given a complete break from Test cricket. Now look only at the white-ball cricket, not red-ball cricket. Give them a complete break who are certain to play World Cup. They have been playing non-stop cricket for 3-4 months. They barely had a break,” said Gavaskar on Sports Today.
“Had they given break to every senior player and played a few more younger players, that would have done Indian cricket a world of good. But that sadly hasn’t happened. I think a wonderful opportunity was missed,” he added.
The West Indies series begins a new chapter for the Indian team, as they prepare to go the distance in the WTC 2023-25 cycle.
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