Coach Gautam Gambhir faces a big challenge regarding selection.Image Credit source: PTI
The second test match between India and South Africa is going to start from 22nd November in Guwahati. Test cricket will be played for the first time on this ground. In such a situation, there is a lot of enthusiasm about it. But the situation before the Guwahati Test is not as the fans and Team India had thought. The Indian team and its fans might have thought that they would capture the series by winning the first Test at Guwahati ground, but now the challenge is to save the series. This challenge is already quite difficult and now a big dilemma has arisen in front of coach Gautam Gambhir.
The Indian team, which faced defeat in the Kolkata Test, now needs to win the Guwahati Test at any cost. Even if this match is a draw, Team India will lose its home Test series for the second time in a year. But this time his challenge has become more tough because the team captain Shubhman Gill, who is in excellent form, is suffering from a neck injury and is not completely fit at the moment. In such a situation, his playing in the second test is not decided at the moment.
Gill’s absence has brought a big dilemma for the team management. There are three players to replace Gill in the Indian team squad but who should be selected among the three is the real challenge. The squad has two top-middle order batsmen in Sai Sudarshan and Devdutt Padikkal, while all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy has also joined the team again. But the selection of any one of them does not seem to make the team’s path completely easy and this is the dilemma before coach Gautam Gambhir.
Let us understand this in some detail. If the Indian team chooses either Sudarshan or Padikkal to fill Gill’s place, then it will make South Africa’s job easier. This is because both of them are left handed batsmen. Now, if the Indian team makes just one change in the playing-11 of Kolkata Test and selects one of them in place of Gill, then 6 out of the top-8 batsmen of the batting order will become left-handed batsmen. Kuldeep Yadav, one of the three tailenders, is also a lefty. In such a situation, like the Kolkata Test, South African off-spinner Simon Harmer and part-time off-spinner Aiden Markram will wreak havoc.
One solution to this is to leave Sudarshan and Padikkal and give a chance to Nitish Kumar Reddy. Even if this happens, the matter will not be resolved completely. Even then there will be only 3 right-handed batsmen in the batting order – KL Rahul, Dhruv Jurel and Reddy. This will definitely bring some change but the matter of concern here is Nitish Reddy’s form. Young all-rounder Reddy has not been in form with the bat since the last England tour. In the Test series against West Indies, he got a chance to bat in only one innings, in which he scored only 43 runs.
Recently, on the Australia tour, he could not do anything special in the 2 ODI matches and then remained out of the entire T20 series due to injury. After recovering from injury, he recently appeared in the ODI match between India A and South Africa A, but here too he was able to score only 37 runs. Overall, Reddy does not seem fully prepared with the bat at the moment and if the Guwahati pitch is like Kolkata, then he too may be in trouble. In such a situation, at present Team India is stuck in a situation of ‘well in front, ditch behind’.