Never change a winning combination, they say. But you need to tweak a losing side, is what the Indian skipper Shubman Gill seems to believe in. Before the all-important fourth Test of the series, India had to take a couple of big calls–Sai Sudharsan or Karun Nair? Prasidh Krishna or Anshul Kamboj?
Though there were a lot of deliberations and debates, the Indian skipper didn’t take the conservative call. He took the punt, disrupted the team that lost the close game at Lord’s. There was a school of thought that Nair and Prasidh should get one more chance but what saw the vote being cast in favour of Sudharsan and Kamboj was their showing at the nets.
The left-handed No.3 batsman has looked in great touch, hardly getting beaten in his long batting stints at nets. Despite not being in the team for two Tests, Sudharsan has spent long hours training, impressing the team with his work ethic. On the eve of the match, there was enough hint that he had been included in the playing eleven. He had a long session with the team’s strength and conditioning coach Adrian Le Roux and then went to the centre pitch for his visualisation routine. As he often does when he is to play the game the next day, Sudharsan touched the pitch solemnly as if he were at a shrine,
Pace from wicket
As for the Haryana pacer Kamboj, he has been making heads turn with his heavy ball during training. The well-built pacer with strong shoulders and his easy run-up has been able to make batsmen hurry because of the pace generated from the wicket.
The prematch talk about India playing both the wicket-keepers Pant and Dhruv Jurel didn’t get much traction in the team meeting. The team management didn’t seem to have the confidence to play Jurel purely as a batsman.
Commenting on the three changes, Shubman, at the toss, would say: “I was actually confused. Good toss to lose. The way we’ve played in the last three Tests has been outstanding. Some crunch moments we’ve lost, but we’ve won more sessions than them. You need a bit of a break. All three Tests were intense. Looks like a good surface. Nice and hard. There’s some forecast (for rain) around for the four-five days. Three changes: Sai Sudharsan comes in place of Karun. Kamboj and Shardul are in as well for Akash Deep and Reddy who are injured.”
