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Cheteshwar Pujara felt that India can make one change to their playing XI for the third Test.
Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Indian cricket team look dejected after losing second Test against Australia (AP)
India started the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on a promising note with a 295-run win in the Test series opener. Australia secured a comeback in the second Test to level the series 1-1 in Adelaide. The visitors will now be looking for a win in the third game in a bid to restore their lead in the series. With the next fixture scheduled to start on Saturday, December 14, plenty of discussions have already started taking place regarding India’s possible combination for the upcoming match. India batter Cheteshwar Pujara recently shared his take on this matter. Pujara felt that India could make one change to their playing XI for the third Test. Pujara felt that including Washington Sundar in place of Ravichandran Ashwin is one change that the Indian team management can contemplate.
“I feel only change might happen. Since the batting wasn’t good, Washington Sundar can come in place of R Ashwin. Should someone come in place of Harshit Rana? In my opinion – no. You backed him and he performed well in the first match. The second match was bad for him,” Cheteshwar Pujara said on the Star Sports show Follow The Blues, as per Sportskeeda.
“However, the team will have to support him. He is a good bowler. You cannot drop him just because one match went bad. We will have to see what the team management thinks but probably only change for me – if they feel the batting lineup needs strengthening, Washington can play for Ashwin,” Cheteshwar Pujara added.
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Team India skipper Rohit Sharma demoted himself in the batting order to keep the opening pair of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal intact. But the move did not work out. Indian batters did not have a fruitful outing in the pink-ball Test having managed to post totals of 180 and 175 respectively in two innings. Skipper Rohit managed to get scores of three and six in Adelaide.
The defeat in the day-night Test also made India’s equation to qualify for the World Test Championship (WTC) a bit tricky. In order to confirm their berth in the WTC final, India will now require two wins and a draw from their remaining three Tests of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.
