India recent defeat at the hands of Australia in the recently concluded ICC World Test Championship (WTC) Final has led to many experts calling for a major revamp in the Test setup going to the next WTC cycle. The onus will be on Virat Kohli to guide the team in the high-voltage Test Series. Virat Kohli was slowly getting into the groove in the WTC 2021-23 final but couldn’t make the most of the start against Australia.
India will start their campaign in the next cycle of the World Test Championship (2023-25) with a two-match Test series against the West Indies in the Caribbean. Promising young talents Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Mukesh Kumar have been called up to be a part of the setup for the Two-match series.
However, this move was at the expense of the veteran one-downer Cheteshwar Pujara, who was dropped from the side after failing to perform in the WTC finals. The move did not sit well with many experts, including former Indian spinster Harbhajan Singh, who hit back at the decision.
Cheteshwar Pujara has been an unsung hero of the Indian team – Harbhajan
Harbhajan Singh during his interaction with PTI said that he had a lot of respect for Pujara for what he has achieved and that it was not right in scapegoating him for the loss when most of the batting lineup had failed to deliver.
“Cheteshwar Pujara has been an unsung hero of the Indian team for many years now. He has been one of those pillars of strength for India, doing the dirty work of hanging in there, making sure other batters got their comfort,” said Harbhajan Singh.
Harbhajan also went on to compare Pujara’s batting average in the cycle with that of Virat Kohli, in a thinly veiled jab of criticism against the former Indian captain, who has also failed to deliver in the recent past.
“I believe he needs to be given a bit more respect than what he has been given and the way he was chucked out of the team was a surprise for me. Because he isn’t the only one not scoring runs. There are others as well who play in that same team who are scoring runs at same average,” he added.
Kohli and Pujara ended up as India’s top scorers in the last WTC cycle with 932 and 928 runs respectively, however the impact this had on the team’s success was questionable as they averaged 32.13 and 32 respectively.
“In case of Pujara, we keep hearing about his strike-rate of scoring runs in Tests but because of that strike-rate, the wickets remain intact and that’s a huge contribution,” – Harbhajan Singh.
The former cricketer strongly believed that India needed a proper Test-match batsmen like Pujara in the team, who can defend at one end while the other batters play freely
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