Indian cricket team coach Gautam Gambhir wanted veteran batsman Cheteshwar Pujara in the squad for the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy, but selectors shot it down, an exclusive report published in the Indian Express on Wednesday said.
The report comes in the wake of an embarrassing loss for the Indian team at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), going 1-2 down in the Border Gavaskar Trophy that India has managed to keep for over a decade.
Pujara, a veteran of over 100 Test matches for India, has been absent from the national team since the 2023 World Test Championship final at the Kia Oval, where India suffered a defeat to Australia. In that match, he scored just 14 and 27 runs across two innings, as the Australians claimed the title.
But Pujara had emerged as the top scorer in the 2018-19 series, amassing 521 runs from 1258 deliveries, and three years later, he once again played a pivotal role in India’s batting lineup by scoring 271 runs off 928 balls, contributing significantly to India’s victories in both series.
India started the Australia tour with a magnificent win in Perth, where Bumrah, the ace generational fast bowler, was the stand-in captain instead of Rohit Sharma, who was away for personal reasons. However, India lost the second match in Adelaide and narrowly saved the third one in Brisbane, thanks to rains. However, in the fourth test match at the MCG, the mighty Aussies delivered a knockout punch, registering a massive 184-run victory over the visitors.
India’s cause has largely been undone by a fragile batting lineup that has failed to leave its mark on the tour. Two senior pros, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, have had a forgettable tour thus far with a string of failures that has only added more pressure to the youngsters in the squad. Only Jaiswal and Nitish Kumar Reddy have seemed comfortable facing the Australian bowling attack, with both having racked up impressive scores to add a semblance of competitiveness in the series.
However, the Indian team has majorly relied on the individual brilliance of Jasprit Bumrah, clearly head and shoulders above the rest, and who has, time and again, single-handedly led the Indian bowling attack and got the team important break-throughs to keep the match in contention. Bumrah achieved a remarkable feat in the MCG match, a mark that hadn’t been touched by a visiting bowler on Australian soil for over three decades when he scalped his 30th wicket on the tour.
