India and England reached the Oval in London to play the 5th and last Test of the series. England has won the series by winning three Test matches and India was left to rue its chances at Edgbaston and Southampton.
When the team was announced for the fifth Test by Virat Kohli at the toss, everyone knew that Hanuma Vihari was making his Test debut in place of Hardik Pandya. However, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar was angry with the team management for picking Vihari over Karun Nair, who has been with the team since the first Test waiting for his chance and when the chance came, it was given to Vihari, who was called up as a backup to Virat Kohli.
Gavaskar said, "He is not your favorite player. The selectors seem to have brought him. Don't think the team management likes him. Karun Nair has every right to ask the team management why he is not in the team. He deserves an answer. You didn't pick an extra specialist batsman earlier, but now that you have, Karun Nair deserves an answer."
Nair is known to be a technically solid batsman and may have been the solution to India's middle order woes, but clearly, the team management thought otherwise and preferred Vihari instead. This happened despite the fact that apart from Virat Kohli and Rahane and Pujara, none of the other batsmen have done anything of note.
Nair became only the second Indian batsman to score a triple century in Test against England in 2016 at Chennai, but since then has been in and out of the team, or waiting for his second chance to prove his mettle.
(inputs from news18.com/cricketnext)
