Selection headaches for India ahead of first Champions Trophy game

India have had a great start to their Champions trophy campaign. They won both their warm-up games with ease and they would be particularly pleased with the way the pace attack has performed.

The batting, however, was a mixed bag. India came into the tournament with an idea of who they would like to play in the XI, but after the warm-up games things have become little muddled.

Shikhar Dhawan has done enough to book his place in the XI, opening the batting with Rohit Sharma. Virat Kohli showed glimpses of him returning form against New Zealand – even though the innings was really scratchy, he would have appreciated the time spent in the middle. MS Dhoni’s position in the team is not in question as he batted reasonably well in the one game he played and kept wickets brilliantly.

Ajinkya Rahane’s twin failure means that he will not feature in the XI for the first game against Pakistan. But now comes the interesting part: India played Dinesh Karthik in both their warm-up games and Yuvraj did not bat in either. Dinesh Karthik scored a brilliant 94 in the Game 2 against Bangladesh and Virat Kohli hinted in the post-match conversation that he would like to give Karthik a longer run in the team.

The position of Yuvraj Singh remains unclear, however. Is Yuvraj not fully fit? If that is the case, his selection was a blunder by the selection committee. Kedar Jadhav played pretty well for his 30-odd against Bangladesh and so did Hardik Pandya, so it will be interesting to see which way the management will go in terms of the batting.

The selection of the bowling attack isn’t that simple either. Bhuvneshwar Kumar has done extremely well in both the games and for sure will take the new ball. Shami and Yadav both have done well in the chances they received, but I am not sure the team has a place for both of them. It will be a toss-up between Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav. Jasprit Bumrah will for sure play as the third seamer as he has been India’s best bowler in the shorter formats over the past year.

(Image: AP Photo/Gautam Singh)

The other decision India would like to make is how they are going to fit Hardik Pandya in the XI. Will one of the spinners be dropped to accommodate him? Hardik did not bowl that well against New Zealand and did not bowl enough against Bangladesh, but he did score that important 80 to help India get over 300.

If India plays both Ashwin and Jadeja in the XI, Pandya will have to play as a batting all-rounder in the place of Yuvraj and Kedar Jadhav, making this a crucial decision for the Indian think tank to make ahead of their opening game against Pakistan.

The Indian team also has some off-field issues going on with their head coach Anil Kumble. Virat and his team will do well to keep that out of their preparation for the crucial game. Issues such as these should not be leaked in the media when the team is competing in a world tournament, so this is very poor from BCCI.

But the Indian team looks good and the players look in decent form ahead of their first game. They would like to make sure that they pick the side with the right balance. The selection of the team is crucial for their chances in this tournament and Virat needs to make sensible decisions rather than emotional ones over the next couple of days.

My XI for the game against Pakistan:
Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (C), Dinesh Karthik, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.