India’s Test team is all set to play against Australia the highly-anticipated Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which is set to begin from November 22 in Perth. However, the availability of India captain Rohit Sharma is still not confirmed, he did not travel with the team on Sunday and Monday.
According to reports, the Indian captain is expecting second child with wife Ritika Sajdeh, however the couple has remained tight-lipped on the matter. Although, the Men in Blue will have a daunting task to fill in the shoes of Rohit Sharma, but here in this article, we’ll try to pick three players who could open alongside Yashasvi Jasiwal in Perth Test.
Three players likely to replace Rohit Sharma in first Test against Australia
Abhimanyu Easwaran
Despite being selected as the team’s third opener, Abhimanyu Easwaran performed poorly in the two unofficial Test matches against Australia A. Although the Bengal batsman has scored a lot of runs in domestic cricket, his performance in Australia has been dismal. Easwaran was only able to score 36 runs in the four innings down under. Speaking of his First-Class numbers, in 101 matches, Easwaran has scored 7674 runs averaging 48.87.
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KL Rahul
KL Rahul struggled in the home Tests and was reportedly flown to Australia to feature in India A’s second unofficial Test. Despite coming to bat as an opener alongside Abhimanyu Easwaran, his knock was ineffective. Despite his dismal form, Rahul has a respectable record in Australia and might be selected to open the innings. Team India Head Coach Gautam Gambhir believes that KL Rahul could be a potential replacement of Rohit Sharma. He said, “KL Rahul can open, he can bat at No.3, he can also bat at No.6. That’s a good thing, not many players can offer such options.”
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Shubman Gill
To make room for Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top of the order, Shubman Gill was dropped to number three. However, Gill and Jaiswal can be put back at the top during Rohit Sharma’s absence. In that scenario, India might add Dhruv Jurel or KL Rahul in the middle order. In the second unofficial Test match against Australia A, Jurel had an outstanding performance, scoring back-to-back two half-centuries.