Salman Butt Calls For Replacing Cheteshwar Pujara With Mayank Agarwal

Cheteshwar Pujara‘s form has been a worry for the Indian team for a long time now. Once the mainstay in India’s batting line-up, Pujara has found runs hard to come by of late. The 33-year-old had a poor home series against New Zealand and also failed to score any run in the first innings of the third Test against South Africa.

Indian openers KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal, though, made the most of their starts. Agarwal scored a fine 60 while KL Rahul got yet another overseas hundred to his name. With Rohit Sharma out with a hamstring injury, it was an easy decision to go in with Mayank and Rahul at the top of the order and slot in Cheteshwar Pujara at No.3.

Cheteshwar Pujara needs to score runs: Salman Butt

The worrying part is when Rohit Sharma returns from injury. Former Pakistan skipper Salman Butt feels that India can slot in Mayank Agarwal at No.3 and drop Cheteshwar Pujara.

Butt wasn’t impressed with the way Shreyas Iyer was dropped from the Indian team after scoring a hundred and a half-century on debut. While he believes it is a good thing to back the experienced players, Salman Butt also feels that it is high time Cheteshwar Pujara gets back to scoring runs consistently.

“He is not in the form now. So, you have to replace him when Rohit Sharma returns because you cannot drop an in-form player. And I was never in favour of that move.

“They left out Shreyas Iyer despite that performance (against New Zealand). India have always backed their senior players, which is good, but Pujara needs to score runs,” Salman Butt said in a video on his YouTube channel.

India have fought back brilliantly in the Test match after having lost the opening hour of play losing 7 wickets for just 55 runs. They have South Africa in a spot of bother and will be looking to take a healthy first-innings lead.

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