Dinesh Karthik makes huge prediction about Gill and Suryakumar for 1st Test vs Australia in Border Gavaskar Trophy
India cricketer Dinesh Karthik has backed Surykumar to play in the 1st Test against Australia in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy this month.
Suryakumar Yadav become a regular for Team India in T20 cricket. But the right-handed batter hasn't been able to match his magic avatar as an explosive batter in the 50-over format. He is yet to score a hundred in ODIs after having played 20 matches and averages merely 28.87. This has led to questions over his impact and relevance in the longer format of the game. Some experts believe his below par performance in ODIs to be the reason why he is yet to mark his debut in Test cricket.
However, India cricketer Dinesh Karthik has backed Surykumar to play in the 1st Test against Australia in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy this month. Karthik opines that as Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of the first game, Team India can count on Suryakumar to do the job.
"In case Shreyas Iyer is not fit, there is going to be a toss-up between Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill. I personally feel we should play Suryakumar because he is a great player of spin and we are going to play on some interesting wickets that are going to support spin. Give him the opportunity. He has been in red-hot form," said Karthik on Cricbuzz.
Karthik has also favoured KL Rahul to open the innings in Tests instead of Gill who had performed the role during India's tour of Bangladesh. He backed Rahul despite the fact that Gill has risen through the ranks exponentially in the last few months as well. Gill slammed a double hundred and emerged as Player of the Series in the recently concluded ODI series against New Zealand. Then after, he smashed 126 off 63 balls in the third T20I of three-match series and achieved the highest individual score by an Indian batter in the shortest format.
"The beauty of Indian cricket right now is that somebody who's in such red-hot form might not be a starter in a format. I feel that Gill is aware that KL Rahul has obviously had a long lineage and has been around for some time," opined Karthik.
He has done well in tough conditions like those in England. He has not had the best of times in Test cricket in the recent past, but it will still be KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma opening," he added.
Meanwhile, Iyer's back injury is a huge blow to Rohit Sharma and Co. as he had been doing exceptionally well in the past few months. The right-handed batter had emerged as the second-highest run-getter in the two-match Test series against Bangladesh in December last year. He had notched up 202 runs in two matches at an incredible average of 101.00 in the series.
