India Tour Of South Africa: Rohit Named Regular Captain In The Shorter Formats, Virat Retained In Tests!
Notwithstanding
the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in South Africa the respective
cricket boards of the two countries have decided to go ahead with the 3-match
Test Series and the 3-match ODI Series, albeit delayed by a week, under a
strict bio-bubble plus regulations, with the T20I Series yet to be scheduled,
by announcing their Test squads late evening yesterday,. While the Indian
selectors have announced an 18-member test squad South Africa announced a
21-member squad. The teams can also expect small crowds of fully vaccinated
people at the playing grounds.
Rahane
despite his being out-of-form in the last 16 tests has been retained in the
Test squad along with the inconsistent Cheteshwar Pujara which is a good move
too for their experiences as specialist Test cricketers. Useful all-rounder
Hamuma Bihari who has already been playing in South Africa for the India-A team
has made a comeback. Shreyas Iyer has also been included for his great showing
against New Zealand at home. The other rested seniors players— KL Rahul, Rishabh
Pant, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami—have all joined the team. Although opener
Mayank Agarwal has been included for his great match-winning battle in the
second Test in Mumbai against New Zealand he may not make it to the playing
eleven as KL Rahul has come back. Wriddhiman Saha has been retained as the
reserve wicketkeeper.
Ravindra
Jadeja, Shubman Gill and Axar Patel are left out due to injuries, and Jayant
Yadav may make it to the playing eleven in the place of Jadeja after the
first-choice spinner Ravichandran Ashwin. However, playing two spinners in the
tests could be tricky decision considering the fact that most of the pitches in
South Africa are fast-paced helping the fast bowlers and India have good
choices available in Bumrah, Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed
Siraj along with three pacers already playing in South Africa being kept as
reserve pacers that include Deepak Chahar, particularly if Hanuma Bihari finds
a place in the final eleven. In any case, it would definitely be a toss between
Bihari and Jayant in making it to the final eleven.
The
India team is set to leave for South Africa on 12th of this month,
and everything looks good for some absorbing cricket, this Test Series also
being a part of the WTC-2021-23 (World Test Championship) which is going to be
South Africa’s first. The Omicron is still a scare and hope the variant does
not do something real nasty. Of course, the news arena currently abounds with
positive reports that the Omicron variant—mutating all the earlier variants like
alpha, beta, delta and so on—may finally turn out to be weaker virus that may
spread very fast, but may cause only milder diseases like normal flues as has
been observed so far in South Africa, United Kingdom and other countries. However,
many other experts say that it is too early to say that and it may take weeks
to arrive at a decision with more and more data available. Like the continuing
phenomenon of the ‘toss’ in cricket it is a ‘toss’ too in the case of Omicron
for, hopefully, good results.
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