Battle of the Champs: India vs Oz

Yeah ,the much awaited Clash of the Titans will get underway as Australia Face India in a Two match test series with the Latter playing Host. India-Australia (Or Border- Gavaskar Series, whatever you call it) Test series have been fiercely contested in the recent past and Considering the quality of the players involved, It won’t be a surprise if this series turns to be a close one.

Cheteshwar Pujara: Mr. Classic

Now comes the call for Cheteshwar Pujara. As usual would he get a place in the Final Playing Eleven is a question. It is common in recent times that a Player is given a debut call and after the Series, he is dropper just like Abhimanyu Mithun. What wrong did Mithun do to be dropped?

Ok. Let me not get into this debate as this mainly focuses on Pujara- his style, temperament and mainly his class. Oh! This Batsman can also be tagged as Mr. Patient. In these days of T20 power hitting, Pujara is a player with patience along with aggression. I believe, he is completely a tailor made player for Test Cricket.

Pujara has been knocking the test door since some time now. He has been signed up by the Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL. After his excellent performance in Domestic Circuit, he went on to score a triple century in Ranji trophy and even in CK Nayudu U-22 tournament for Saurashtra.

He has played 49 Domestic 5 day matches scoring a whooping 3925 with 60.38. This is a great average for Test game. Not only this, in One Day domestic he has played 44 matches with an average of 57.08 scoring 1941 runs. This is purely

From the stat, we find a Great batsman with terrific  skills in Cheteshwar Pujara with temperament, technique, style. Will he be the next big star is a question and will be answered in Indo- Aus series.

He is going to play in the team in the likes of Sehwag, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid. Yes, they are big huge names. But, there will be some tears shed for Yuvraj as Pujara has taken his place.

But Yuvraj didn’t do enough to cement his place once Ganguly retired. Now, he has payed the price for it. Suresh Raina recently replaced Yuvraj and did excellently well but not strong enough.

Hoping that Cheteshwar Pujara gets to play in the XI and does well.

World Championship of Cricket- Who will make it for India?

Hmm, Sadly with four important players- Yuvraj, Laxman, Dravid and Sreesanth out of the side. The selection committee  headed by Kris Srikanth will meet tomorrow and will decide who will replace these players in the upcoming World Series of Championship against South Africa.

Dravid and Yuvraj are surely out and have to take a minimum month of rest. But Laxman may play. I have no idea on Sreesanth.

The Selection committee will surely not select uncapped players instead of them to give a chance because this series is too important as it will change to rankings. If India lose the series they will slip down to No.2 spot or even worse No.3.

Even bad is that Dravid and Laxman, the main caps of the Indian batting will surely miss out. So the question is who are the ones who will play instead of these biggies.

So I have prepared a squad for the test series against South Africa.

1. MS Dhoni (Captain)
2. Virender Sehwag (Vice Captain)
3. Gautam Gambhir
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Murali Vijay
6. Harbhajan Singh
7. Amit Mishra
8. Pragyan Ojha
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Ishant Sharma
11. Munaf Patel
12. Subramanium Badrinath
    
13. Wasim Jaffer
14. Virat Kohli
    
15. Sudeep Tyagi

So, you would be questioning out with what I have selected. So I have my explanations.

• I’ve chosen Munaf Patel because i won’t give a place for an uncapped player. Surely when Munaf is given a chance, he will prove his worth. The main thing is that he has experience. No other player including Ashish Nehra has experience.
• Wasim Jaffer! You will think it is a bad choice but he is the only experienced player India have in test cricket. He is excellent in test cricket. He is doing superbly for Mumbai Ranji.
• S Badrinath is probably a test player. He is solid like Laxman and is the best replacement for VVS Laxman.
• Virat Kohli may be given a go because if you give a go to players like Raina or Jadeja, they are sloggers in batting ad would not stay long. So he is the only guy who stays long in the team who is uncapped in test matches.
• People feel Cheteshwar Pujara should be given a go, but in this series he might not be a good choice because he is uncapped. He has experience his domestic circuit but he has no international experience.
• So this is the best team India can have in my point of view if the injured 4 players are not there.