India head coach Gautam Gambhir is hoping that captain Rohit Sharma will probably be obtainable for the primary Take a look at towards Australia in Perth, although he’s pleased with the choices he has in case Rohit would not make it.
“We are going to let you already know precisely what the state of affairs will probably be. Hopefully he will be obtainable, however every little thing we will get to know at the beginning of the collection,” Gambhir stated at a press-conference earlier than the staff’s departure to Australia.
As reported earlier, Rohit is a doubt for the primary Take a look at owing to non-public causes, however there is no such thing as a readability on his standing. Which raises two questions. The primary, who will open alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal if Rohit is not there. “Clearly there may be [Abhimanyu] Easwaran and there may be [KL [Rahul] there. So we’ll take a name nearer to the primary Take a look at match if Rohit is just not obtainable,” Gambhir stated. “There are alternatives there, it is not that there are not any choices there. There are fairly a number of choices within the squad.
“As soon as it will get nearer to the primary Take a look at match, we’ll plan and play the very best enjoying XI that is going to do the job for us.” Shubman Gill is another choice obtainable within the squad.
Rahul and Abhimanyu opened for India A within the second four-day match towards Australia A, however each returned low scores. Abhimanyu, who additionally performed the primary recreation of that collection, returned scores of seven, 12, 0 and 17 throughout the 2 video games, whereas Rahul made 4 and 10 within the two innings in his solely recreation.
The second query has to do with captaincy. Gambhir stored it easy: “[Jasprit] Bumrah is the vice-captain so clearly he’ll [be the captain] if Rohit is just not obtainable.”
A gaggle of 5 gamers – Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Gill, Washington Sundar and Jaiswal – have already left for Australia, whereas the remainder of the squad will go away later as we speak.
