India boldly dropped batting stalwart Cheteshwar Pujara from their Test squad recently for the Tour of the Caribbean, starting in July.
Instead the men’s selection committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India turned to the uncapped pair of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Yashasvi Jaiswal in the 16-member squad to audition for the No.3 role that Pujara occupied for most of his 103 Tests.
The selection panel announced big changes to the Test squad recently when they also announced the squad for three One-day Internationals that will also form part of the tour.
Pujara and pacer Umesh Yadav, are the most visible omissions from the squad after a poor show in the ICC World Test Championship final against Australia a couple weeks ago in England, and uncapped pacer Mukesh Kumar also gets a chance.
Though Gaikwad and Jaiswal have strong records at the first-class, they appeared to have gained their places ahead of more suitable contenders for India’s first series of the 2023-25 WTC cycle after strong performances in the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) twenty20 tournament.
Jaiswal scored the fastest 50 in the IPL from 13 balls this season and finished the tournament among the top five run-getters with 625 runs, while Gaikwad accumulated 590.
Jaiswal has a first-class average of 80.21 in 26 innings. Gaikwad has a first-class average of 42.19 from 28 matches with six hundreds. He made headlines last November when he struck seven sixes on an over for his team Maharashtra.
The rest of the squad, led by Rohit Sharma, includes most of the players that played in the WTC final with Ajinkya Rahane regaining the role of vice-captain.
The 17-member ODI squad will also be captained by Sharma, with Hardik Pandya as vice-captain.
The squad for the five Twenty20 Internationals on the tour will be announced at a later date.
