1. Who Bats at Five For India?
As if the opening conundrum was not enough, here’s one more piece of the batting puzzle which is likely to give the Indian think-tank a selection headache, albeit a happy headache. With the rest of the batting order looking pretty much settled, the only slot which will see more than one candidate vying for it is the number-five batting slot in the Indian line-up. As many as three candidates are in contention to essay the role of number five in the Bangalore Test, but only one of them will get a look-in.
It could well be Mumbai’s Shreyas Iyer who has made it to the Indian Test squad on the back of a decent domestic season and an equally fruitful IPL season for the Delhi Daredevils, in which he aggregated 411 runs from 14 matches @ 37.36 after he took over as captain midwaythrough the tournament, or it could also be Karnataka’s Karun Nair—who, after falling out of favour with the national selectors, courtesy a series of dismal scores following his maiden triple hundred against England in Chennai in 2016—has made a comeback after a span of fourteen months.
Also, don’t rule out the possibility of seeing KL Rahul walk out to bat at number-four either as it would provide the team management with an opportunity to try out all their three openers in the same playing XI, which in turn would give the troika some crucial match practice ahead of the much-vaunted England tour.
PLAYERS TO WATCH OUT FOR:-
INDIA: KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin and Umesh Yadav.
AFGHANISTAN: Rashid Khan, Md. Nabi, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Md. Shahzad and Dawlat Zadran.
