Ahead of the Day-Night Test in Adelaide on December 17, cricket legends Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border have picked Shubman Gill over Prithvi Shaw to open the innings alongside Mayank Agarwal.
Gill looked in good touch in the second warm-up game against Australia ‘A’, scoring 43 and 65 across the two innings at SCG. On the other hand, Shaw registered the scores of 0, 19, 40 and 3 in his four outings in the two practice matches.
"I think he [Shaw] has got to spend a little more time assessing his batting. As an opening batsman, you have to give yourself time to see what the pitch and the bowlers are doing," Gavaskar said at a virtual media interaction, as quoted by Sportstar. “Trying to bat the way he is batting at the moment is not going to make him a consistent player. Yes, he is going to make runs once in a while but he needs to tighten up his defence.”
Border endorsed Gavaskar’s views and showered rich praise on Gill.
“It seems to me he [Shaw] plays a shot every ball. I guess with the new ball, it looks good on flat tracks but in Australia, you got to be a little bit more watchful about your shot selection. He seems to be a bit loose (sic) outside the off-stump.
“I have been in Sydney the last couple of days, watching your boys run around. Jee, I was impressed with Gill. I really think he has got something about him - his technique. I know he is young, so he can play a few rash shots here and there but he looks like a seriously good player. He will be my pick [for the opener's position] out of the guys I saw.”
Skipper Virat Kohli is also facing the selection headache with the regards to the choice of wicketkeeper between Wriddhiman Saha and Rishabh Pant.
However, Gavaskar feels Pant would be the choice of the management as he scored a hundred in the last tour game under lights and also did well in the 2018-19 tour.
"Pant played in all four Tests two years ago and he also got a hundred. He seems to have got under the skin of some of the Australian players with his chirping behind the stumps. Plus he is coming off a 100 in the practice game, so he would be the choice of the management," he said.
According to Gavaskar, the uncertainty surrounding India's top-order means that Pant is likely is to get the nod over Saha.
"Here, because India will play pacers, so you [keeper] can stand behind and you get that much more time from 15 yards behind the stumps ... also at the top of the order, India seem to be a little bit shaky, so they would want to strengthen their batting," Gavaskar said.
"But when you are playing on pitches where the keeper has to stand up to the stumps, where the ball turns around a little bit, that's when you tend to take your best keeper in which case Saha would be the obvious choice."
