The BCCI on Saturday announced India's Test and T20I squads for the upcoming home series against Sri Lanka. While, and as expected, Rohit Sharma was named captain of the longest format, the board also revealed that out-of-form senior batters in Ajinkya Rahane have been dropped for the two Tests. Reacting to the news, fans on Twitter expressed satisfaction.
Calls for dropping Pujara and Rahane from the Test squads only grew louder throughout 2021, courtesy of their continuously poor returns with the bat. While Pujara scored 702 runs in 14 Tests, at an average of 28.08, Rahane could only accumulate 479 runs in 13 games.
Hence, when the Chairman of the selection committee, Chetan Sharma, announced the squad, it didn't come as a surprise to most cricket fans.
Here's how the world of Twitter reacted:
Their absence from this series doesn't mean the doors are closed for them. During the virtual press conference, Chetan Sharma repeatedly mentioned that he spoke to both the senior pros and asked them to focus on the ongoing Ranji Trophy season.
{{/usCountry}}Their absence from this series doesn't mean the doors are closed for them. During the virtual press conference, Chetan Sharma repeatedly mentioned that he spoke to both the senior pros and asked them to focus on the ongoing Ranji Trophy season.
{{/usCountry}}Incidentally, both of them are up against each other in the very game of the new edition. On the one hand, Mumbai's Rahane smashed a brilliant 100 to keep himself in contention for a spot in the side. That, as we now know, did not quite work in his favour yet.
On the other hand, Saurashtra's Pujara's Saturday was a torrid one. Not only did he get dropped, but he also returned to the pavilion with a four-ball duck.
Here are the full squad:
Test: Rohit Sharma (c), Mayank Agarwal, Priyank Panchal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, R Pant, KS Bharat, R Ashwin (subject to fitness), R Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, J Bumrah (vc), Md. Shami, Md. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Saurabh Kumar
T20I: Rohit Sharma (c)Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Bumrah (vc), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Md. Siraj, Sanju Samson (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Y Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Avesh Khan