The BCCI selection committee on Friday (June 23) unveiled Team India’s squad for the upcoming two-match Test series against West Indies.
While the 16-member squad included some fresh faces like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Mukesh Kumar, there was a 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. The 35-year-old registered scores of 14 and 27 in the marquee clash as India lost the match by a huge margin of 209 runs at The Oval.
After an extended lean patch, Pujara was dropped from the Indian Test team last year but he managed to regain his place on the back of stunning exploits in the County Championship for Sussex.
On his comeback, Pujara failed to grab the opportunities with both hands but his snub triggered a debate on social media. Some of the fans and experts asked the selectors to treat all players equally, pointing out that star batter Virat Kohli’s Test stats for the last three years isn’t impressive as well.
Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra also joined the bandwagon and highlighted that Kohli has the same batting average as Pujara from January 2020 till date.
"Now that Pujara is not there, the question is was it the right decision? I am not going to make an opinion. I'm only going to show a few numbers of Indian batters in Test cricket in the last three years. Rohit Sharma has scored the most runs with an average of 43 in 18 matches. Shubman Gill averages 32 in 16 matches and KL Rahul 30 in 11 matches. Pujara has an average of 29 in 28 matches. Kohli, during the same period, also has the same average as Pujara. The only difference is that Kohli has played three matches less than Pujara. Ajinkya Rahane, who has played 20 matches, his average is the worst in this list, which is 26.50," Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
Sharing his thoughts on Pujara’s another comeback, Aakash Chopra sounded a bit pessimistic citing that the team seems to have moved on with younger options for the next WTC cycle.
"So these are the numbers based on which Pujara has been axed. You should never say never because when Ajinkya Rahane has come back like that, Cheteshwar Pujara was also dropped in between, and his performance was amazing in county cricket due to which he was given a place again in the team. He did well too (in Tests) but now it seems, the next WTC cycle is starting, he is not getting younger by the day and maybe the Indian team has started to look in a different direction," he added.
India will begin their WTC 2023-25 cycle with the two-match Test series against West Indies, starting July 12 in Dominica.
