Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara
The selectors of the Indian cricket team have finally announced the team for the series to be played in all three formats on the South Africa tour. At the end of this tour, a 2-match Test series will also be played which is also a part of the ICC World Test Championship. In such a situation, Team India would like to play in this test series with full preparation. While Rohit Sharma will be seen handling the responsibility of captaining the Test team, two important players Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara have not been included in the team for this series. While Pujara was not a part of the team even in the Test series played on the West Indies tour, Rahane, despite being the vice-captain of the team on that tour, could not succeed in making his place in the team for this tour.
Rahane and Pujara’s experience will be missed
If we talk about Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, both the players definitely have a lot of experience of playing Test cricket in South Africa. While Pujara has toured South Africa four times so far with Team India, Rahane has also visited three times. With the return of Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul to the Test team, the exclusion of both these players was considered certain and the selectors also took this decision keeping the future in mind. While Pujara had not been able to perform anything special in the Test format for quite some time, Rahane had definitely shown the power of his bat in the final of WTC 2023, but his bat remained silent in the Test series against West Indies. If we look at Pujara’s Test record in Africa, he has scored 535 runs in 10 Test matches, which includes three half-centuries and one century. Rahane has scored 402 runs in 6 matches and has also scored three half-centuries.
All eyes will be on KL Rahul
The Indian team has not tasted Test series victory in South Africa even once, so this tour is going to prove to be very important for them. Both KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer are returning to the Test team after a long time and everyone’s eyes are going to be on their performance. Rahul was a part of the team in the home Test series against Australia before becoming unfit, but he could not make any significant contribution at all with the bat, after which Shubman Gill got a chance to open the innings with captain Rohit Sharma in his place. . The last time India played a Test series in Africa, KL Rahul took over the captaincy in the second match when Virat Kohli was unfit, although India lost by 7 wickets in that match.
Here is the Indian team for the test series against South Africa
Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Mohammed Shami. , Jasprit Bumrah (Vice Captain), Prasidh Krishna.
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