Indian cricket team selectors have displayed the names of players for the rest of the test matches against the England team. Once again Gautam Gambhir has been named out of the squad. Seeing his poor performance on the given chances, the decision is not so surprising. He was chosen to play against New Zealand in the last test match and he has equally disappointed. KL Rahul’s injury has again given him chance to prove himself but it's like the 35-year-old Indian opener has done with his talent.
As we have already seen, Indian selectors are giving priority to performance rather than the names. It has begun just after the historical victory of 2011 world cup and all-time great cricketers have to sacrifice their career to build the new and more talented Indian cricket team. The names of Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh are now replaced by Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Shikar Dhawan and Ravichandran Ashwin. The young talent is even proving to their expectations. In such a situation the senior in the middle is struggling to attain the form which is even not sure to be permanent.
Gambhir was put out from Indian national team after the poor performance against England in 2014 where he has just scored 25 runs in all 4 innings. He has played a lot more first class cricket after the event and had made 1580 runs with an unbeatable average of 49.24. Just before his re-election in the national squad he has scored the total of 356 runs in five innings of the Duleep trophy with an average of 71.20. He has seen to made a change in his playing stance which was making him more confident against the short deliveries as well which was his weakness at one point of time.
But the comeback doesn't turns well for the opener. Although he has made a half-century in the first inning after the comeback but soon it was disappeared with duck in the successive innings making him the opener with the most number of ducks in the test cricket.
Now KL Rahul is fit again and there are very poor chances of involving Gambhir if India seeks for a winning strategy. KL Rahul is the best opening pair to accompany Murali Vijay on the other hand. If the opening pair gives a good start then subsequently it is a low pressure on number 3 Cheteshware Pujara and Captain Kohli at number 4. If he gets the spotlight because of the injured young openers then that’s the only case otherwise, there is no valid point of including him in the match winning squad.
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