India‘s newly-appointed Test captain Rohit Sharma said that the experience of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane will be missed as they are giants of Indian cricket and it’s not easy to replace them. Notable that India dropped 4 senior players for the 2-Test match series against Sri Lanka. The selectors also dropped the experienced campaigners like Ishant Sharma and Wriddhiman Saha.
However, Rohit Sharma stressed that it’s not the end of the road for the seniors and if they regain their form back in domestic cricket, they will be back in the mix for the future. In place of Pujara, India sotted Hanuma Vihari at no.3 while Shreyas Iyer who scored a century on his debut last year against New Zealand in Kanpur has been given a go in the middle order in place of Rahane.
“Look, Rahane and Pujara are big shoes to fill, it will never be easy for whoever comes in, even I do not know who is going to come in for Rahane and Pujara honestly. Look, at what Pujara and Rahane have done for this team, you cannot put it out in words, all these years of hard work and playing 80-90 odd Tests, all those overseas Test wins. India getting to No.1 in Tests, these guys helped us in that situation and they have played a big part in that,” Rohit Sharma said in a pre-match press conference.
“They will be in our plans”- Rohit Sharma
“There is no way that these guys would not be looked upon in the future, they will be in our plans. Like the selector also said, it is just for now that we did not consider them. There is nothing written about them not being considered for the series later on,” he added.
Apart from these players, India is also missing the services of KL Rahul and Axar Patel for the series due to injuries. In the World Test championship points table, India is currently at no.5. Apart from the series against Sri Lanka, they will play against Australia and Bangladesh in the remaining cycle of WTC.
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