One more squad announcement of the Indian team and yet another set of debates caught fire the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sprung a couple of surprises, especially in the Test team ahead of the two-match series against the West Indies. The repercussions of the World Test Championship (WTC) final loss were expected to be visible in the squad and veteran batter Cheteshwar Pujara was the first casualty.
Pujara's low returns in Test cricket despite his outstanding run in the County Championship in two successive seasons meant he faced an axe, while the leading run-getter of Ranji Trophy in the last two seasons, Sarfaraz Khan still had to stay on the sidelines, despite doing everything to be in the Test team.
Sarfaraz's continued exclusion led the former cricketers to raise questions on the relevance of first-class cricket and why IPL has become such a key part of a selection, even in red-ball cricket.
Sarfaraz, who averages 79.65 in first-class cricket and 92.8 since 2021 has scored more runs than anyone in the last two Ranji Trophy seasons where he was slamming centuries for fun. However, since his returns in the IPL playing for the Delhi Capitals were low, he will have to keep performing in the red-ball matches in domestic cricket and keep banging that door of selection.
Sarfaraz, who is part of the West Zone squad in the upcoming edition of the Duleep Trophy, has been putting in the hard yards and after the squad announcement, he came up with a cryptic post on his Instagram story. "One love," Sarfaraz captioned the post of the pitch where he was seemingly practicing with the title track of the Bollywood film 'Lakshya' in the backdrop whose lyrics went like 'roke tujhko andhiyaan, kya zameen or aasmaan, payega jo lakshya hai tera. Lakshya toh har haal mein paana hai (Not even earth, sky or storm can stop you, you will achieve your goal and it has to be done at any cost).'
India’s Test squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), KS Bharat (wicketkeeper), Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Navdeep Saini
