India must come out of confusion and poor form

Aug.18 - Even after two straight defeats in the five-match series in England, India are still the worlds best Test side, ranked at the top while England are fifth behind South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. 3rd Test Preview: India

Murali Vijay, who started off so well the last time, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara looked in decent touch till that third-Test crash. Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni held the lower-order with Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami chipping in with fifties to give the totals a winnable look in the first two Tests. Remember Virat Kohli was a total flop in the series, raising question marks over his technique and temperament.

To his credit, Kohli worked on his game and in four years he is leading the charge. But now the others are not pulling their weight, making the team selection a difficult proposition. To add to their woes the former players, some of them are in England, are pulling in different directions.

Now the tour selection committee may be forced to bring back Shikhar Dhawan to partner another out-of-form Vijay and it doesn't know what to do with Lokesh Rahul. In its desperation, it might toy with the idea of playing Karun Nair to remind the Englishmen that here's the guy who has scored a triple century against them when they last played them in India. Who will he replace, Pujara or Rahane. It's all so confusing to even think.

In that frustration India might throw young Rishab Pant into the deep end of the pool, but the only worry is whether he should play as a batsman or also keep wickets. It is not possible to play both him and Dinesh Karthik.

Karthik had a couple of issues while judging the catches going to the first slip, but the main issue with him is his loss of batting form, two ducks in four innings, after looking so good in the warm-up game.

Mercifully, the bowling is not creating a headache. Jaspit Bumrah is bowling fit and he should come in place of Kuldeep Yadav to join Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Shami. In hindsight, Ravi Shastri admitted that playing Kuldeep was an error judgment.

Any large-scale changes will leave the team in disarray at a time it should be thinking and planning to stage a comeback. It cannot be a case of trying out people just because the chosen ones have failed in two Tests.