The much-awaited Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia got underway on Friday (November 22) at the Optus Stadium in Perth.
The visitors handed debut caps to all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy and pacer Nitish Rana for the series opener as they decided to leave out seasoned campaigners, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, from the playing XI.
The move to drop the two experienced spin all-rounders didn’t go down well with the legendary Sunil Gavaskar.
Washington Sundar is playing as the lone spinner in India’s line-up, and Gavaskar slammed the team management’s call to bench both Ashwin and Jadeja.
While performing commentary duties on Day 1 of the Perth Test, Gavaskar suggested that Ashwin and Jadeja have the ability to do well in all conditions. He also lambasted the management for picking Reddy, who has the experience of just 23 first-class matches to his name.
"Really surprised with Ashwin and Jadeja not playing, they have got 900 wickets between them in Test matches. They are not bowlers who can just play in Indian or sub-continent conditions. They are very clever bowlers, they are very experienced bowlers. Even if they might not get you wickets, they will be able to slow the scoring down because of the cleverness of how they bowl," said Gavaskar on-air.
"I would have thought that on these Australian wickets, there are big boundaries, so I thought you would have gone with both of them. But this is a new management, new thinking. They have gone with Nitish Kumar Reddy, who is a promising cricketer, make no mistake about that. But is he ready for Test cricket?" he added.
The 75-year-old further stated that the selection of Nitish Kumar Reddy was more "in hope".
"He has not played many first-class games and so clearly, I think, this selection of Nitish is more in hope, nothing less. Like all Indian cricket followers, I hope it comes off," Gavaskar remarked.
Coming to the match, India got off to a terrible start as they lost four wickets for just 47 runs after opting to bat first. While Yashasvi Jaiswal and Devdutt Padikkal failed to open their accounts, Virat Kohli was dismissed for only 5 runs.
At the stroke of Lunch break, India lost the prized scalp of KL Rahul, who was batting brilliantly on 26 off 74 balls. Rahul’s dismissal also sparked a controversy as many felt that he was hard done by the third umpire.
The right-handed opener was initially given not out by the on-field umpire after the Australian players appealed for a caught behind. Upon review, TV umpire Richard Illingworth adjudged the batter to have nicked the ball following a spike on Ultra Edge even though the front-on replay was inconclusive.
Rahul’s dismissal left India reeling at 47/4 at the stroke of lunch. The visitors went to the lunch break with the score of 51/4 on the board. Rishabh Pant (10*) and Dhruv Jurel (4*) were the two unbeaten batters at the crease.
