Transition is in the air and when change is inevitable, an axe is just around the corner. Just as the BCCI’s press release announcing the Indian squads (Test and ODI series) for the West Indies tour, popped up through social media and in the email inboxes of cricket writers, it was time to accept that Cheteshwar Pujara had become the sacrificial lamb. The axe was on him, and this could be the last full stop on his storied international career or a mere comma, as India’s No. 3 batter in Tests had made a comeback after an omission in the recent past.
The quest for a new-mix, be it among batters and bowlers, in the fresh World Test Championship (WTC) cycle may have forced the Indian think-tank of coach Rahul Dravid and skipper Rohit Sharma along with the selectors to plump for young talent. India’s performance has been a tale of so-near-and-yet-so-far in two WTC finals — the latest being the loss against Australia — and the added ageism factor obvious in the squad’s core group hovering around the mid-30s mark meant that a cull, even if it was partial, was in the offing.
Pujara, despite a good turn with Sussex in County cricket, didn’t exactly translate that form against old foe Australia, besides that he is 35. Interestingly, the Saurashtra batter’s Test debut was against Australia in Bengaluru in 2010 and his second-innings 72 during a successful chase marked him out as special. Unfortunately, a leg-injury scuttled his initial forays but he staged a fine comeback and has been intrinsic to India’s middle-order for more than a decade until the stutter over the last few years.
