England vs India 2018: Gautam Gambhir Selects His Opening Pair

The southpaw batsman Gautam Gambhir gave his choice for the opening pair between England vs India 2018 Test series. Indian team management is scratching their head as far as the selecting the openers is concerned.

Consequently, Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, and KL Rahul have made a strong case for themselves. The left-hander, Dhawan has a good record while playing in England. However, he was dismissed for a duck in the warm-up match against Essex.

Gambhir wants to go with KL Rahul and Murali Vijay.

On the other hand, the two right-handers, KL Rahul and Murali Vijay were able to score the fifties. Meanwhile, playing Shikhar Dhawan will give a right and left-hand combination at the top of the order, which is always handy.

Contrarily, Gautam Gambhir picked KL Rahul and Murali Vijay on current form as Indian openers. Moreover, they are a bit more technically correct.

“That’s a tricky question because Shikhar Dhawan got a hundred in the last Test match. But to maintain continuity I would definitely go with KL Rahul and Murali Vijay and play Chesteshwar Pujara at three,” Gambhir said while talking to Cricbuzz.

Furthermore, Murali Vijay had scored 402 runs in the previous England tour of 2014. Therefore, the previous series performance gives a push to his name in the playing XI, come the first Test match on August 1.

Pujara and Vijay will have a key role.

Meanwhile, Chesteshwar Pujara is the backbone of the Indian middle order. Thus, Gambhir believes that Murali Vijay, as well as Pujara, will have a key role to play in the England conditions.

“Pujara is going to be a very important member in the batting line-up of the five-match Test series. They might look to Rahul to play at three and open with Shikhar and Murali. Two batters who I have lots of faith on is Murali and Pujara. Virat Kohli is always important in Test matches. However, these two batsmen have to score runs. Sometimes playing time in England is very important as well because everything depends on overhead conditions.

Play according to conditions, play your time.

Gautam Gambhir went on to add that India might need to play time in the Test matches. Therefore, Gambhir believes that there is no better man than Cheteshwar Pujara to do the job. Pujara has a solid defence and he would like to take out the shine of the new ball. Consequently, Pujara will be given the role of making the lives of following batsmen more comfortable.

“There are moments when you have to play some gritty and ugly sessions where you are just trying to hold on and cash in once the sun is out and who else better than Pujara can do that. He has got the ability to play time and lot of people might debate that he has had an ordinary county season, but he still remains an important part of the batting unit and so we should start with someone like him. And if you don’t give him that confidence it might turn out to be a tricky situation for India,” Gambhir concluded.