India will get their third World Test Championship cycle underway with the tour of the West Indies in mid July. There have been a couple of big omissions in the squad named earlier this week for the two Tests as Cheteshwar Pujara and Umesh Yadav were dropped following the WTC final in England.
Three youngsters were given their maiden Test call-ups including Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Mukesh Kumar.
The team will continue to be led by Rohit Sharma who will have Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja among other senior players for company.
However, legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar thinks that the West Indies tour was a good chance for the team management to do some experiments and rest the ‘big boys’ and test the next generation of Test cricketers.
“There was a very good chance to try and look at the next rung of cricketers.,” Gavaksar told Sports Today. “Because if there was any tour where you could have made some sort of experiments then it was the West Indies. They are not the same force anymore. Therefore, blooding in the younger players would have been the right way.”
With the ODI World Cup few months away, Gavaskar said the senior players should only focus on white-ball cricket now.
He added that since they’ve been playing non-stop since the T20 World Cup last year, this was an opportune moment to refresh and rejuvenate.
“The WTC is gone, we missed out there but the next big thing is the ODI World Cup,” Gavaskar said. “I would have preferred the big boys to be given a complete break from Test cricket. Look at only the 50-over format and maybe T20s too as it is the abbreviated version. I would have only wanted them to focus on white-ball cricket.”
“They have been playing non-stop cricket since October-November last year. And apart from injury breaks, they have not really got long breaks. So give them a complete break from red-ball cricket. The certainties who would be playing the 50-over World Cup. You have given (Mohammed) Shami a break so maybe the others too,” he added.
Gavaskar pointed out the fact that the team will have to leave early for the tour to take part in warm-up matches which will eat into their break time.
“Give them a break, give them a complete break. Look, they have finished on the 12th of June, give them a break till 20, 25th of July. I mean no Test matches, no travelling either. Now apparently this team is going to go for warm-up matches from the 1st or 2nd of July. So how many day’s break have they had? Barely 20 days? Why not give them a 40-day break. Give them a complete 40 day break so when they comeback for the one days and the new season totally fresh” Gavaskar said.
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