Team India’s World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle is all set to get underway with the two-match Test series against West Indies, starting July 12 in Dominica.
For the West Indies series, the BCCI selection committee on Friday (June 23) announced India’s 16-member squad. While the team included some fresh faces like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Mukesh Kumar, there was one notable omission as well.
Veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara was left out of the Test side. His exclusion comes after failure in the World Test Championship final against Australia earlier this month.
Pujara, 35, managed to register scores of 14 and 27 in the marquee clash as India lost the match by a huge margin of 209 runs at The Oval.
While the selectors didn’t give any clarification on Pujara’s snub, former India spinner Harbhajan Singh hoped that the senior batter has been rested and not dropped for the West Indies tour.
"I hope it is a rest given to him rather than getting him dropped. A player who has played 100 Test matches should get the respect he deserves. I hope the selectors have talked to him and discussed the further roadmap with him," Harbhajan said in a video posted on his YouTube channel.
Pujara’s performance hasn’t been impressive in the last couple of years, but Harbhajan pointed out that some other Indian batters are also struggling and urged the selectors to treat all players equally.
"Cheteshwar Pujara is the backbone of this team, and if you are dropping him then the figures of other batters in the last two years aren’t that strong enough. These tough calls should be same for everyone, no matter how big player he is. If you don’t consider Cheteshwar Pujara a big player then for me, other players are not that great," he added.
Notably, Cheteshwar Pujara was axed from the Indian Test team last year as well but he regained his place in the side on the back of stunning exploits in the County Championship for Sussex.
It remains to be seen if Pujara makes his return to the Test team this time around after facing the ouster.
India’s Test squad for West Indies tour: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ajinkya Rahane (vc), KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Akshar Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini.
