Virat Kohli is continuously criticised for his team selection. His selection of Ravindra Jadeja over Ravichandran Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari over Rohit Sharma is a talk of the town. Former cricketers have also disagreed with his decision.
Seeing through the performance, the final XI in West Indies soil has given an amazing performance. It was the biggest margin win for India in foreign soil. Ajinkya Rahane century and Hanuma Vihari 93 set the target of 419 runs.
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Jasprit Bumrah‘s five-wicket haul and Ishant Sharma three crucial wickets stopped Windies to reaching the target and India won the match by 318 runs.
Luckily, the selection of the team benefited the Indian team and India lead with 1-0 in two-match Test series.
Vihari in the first innings scored 32 runs, and in the second innings hit 93 runs – his highest Test score and made a strong partnership with Ajinkay Rahane. Vihari is also a part-time off-spinner. His contribution to the match was appreciable.
But if we go through Ashwin’s record, he is one of the finest players to compete against West Indies. Hanuma Vihari selection in the sixth spot over Rohit Sharma was also not accepted. As Sharma has shown satisfactory performance in T20I and ODI. In last Test match against Australia, he scored 63* and five runs.
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Why Was Hanuma Vihari Selected?
After the winning of the first Test match, Virat Kohli cleared that the decision was taken after discussing with the team. So that the overall combination of the team goes well.
“Vihari got a nod because the combination is important. He’s an effective part-time bowler and helps us when we need to catch up with the over-rate. We have a group discussion and then we decide what’s best for the team. There will always be opinions about the XI, but people will know that it’s in the interest of the team,” Virat Kohli said.