- Cheteshwar Pujara:
There aren’t any prizes for saying that Shastri’s isn’t the biggest backer of someone as solid as Cheteshwar Pujara. During his tenure with the side as the team director previously, Pujara was axed in Australia following a run of low scores and replaced by Rohit Sharma for the Test at Sydney. The trend continued in the one off Test in Bangladesh and the first two games in Sri Lanka. Only after the regular openers were ruled out, did Pujara find a spot in the XI, and he grabbed it with both hands with a match winning knock of 145* on a treacherous Colombo track. Thereby, one can deduce that with Shastri around, there will be no complacency for Pujara in the future. A few failures or a string of low scores on an overseas trip, and he could well be dropped for other batsmen in the ranks.