Former Australia wristspinner Brad Hogg lauded Indian selectors for leaving two veteran cricketers – Ishant Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane – out of the squad ahead of the Edgbaston Test in England.
Both Ishant and Rahane were dropped by the Chetan Sharma led selection panel in the aftermath of the country’s disappointing 2-1 series loss to a beatable South African side last winter.
The duo didn’t feature in the pair of home Tests against Sri Lanka in March and now have been looked past for the rescheduled fifth Test of last year’s Pataudi Trophy in Birmingham, starting July 1.
For Hogg, it reflects a healthy cricketing system that India could confidently drop Rahane and Ishant from the Test squad and be optimistic about their immediate replacements.
The selectors have brought in Shreyas Iyer to the No.5 spot in place of a long-struggling Rahane and decided to give young seamers Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna the nod in replacement of a wearing out Ishant.
“I think it’s great that the selectors have removed Ajinkya Rahane and Ishant Sharma from the Test team. They have been ageing and haven’t been performing to the best of their abilities of late.
You’ve got to move on and bring youth in and rotate them so that they get to experience alongside those who are already experienced,”
Hogg said in response to a fan query during a Q & A session on his YouTube channel.
He added that the departure of Rahane and Ishant from the scene has presented Iyer and Krishna with a great opportunity to warm up to the difficult game of Test cricket.
Krishna hasn’t yet made his Test debut but is one of India’s bright young seamers, long earmarked for the traditional format because of his tall stature and the ability to generate bounce and seam movement at 140 clicks and above.
As for Iyer, the middle-order batter made a fantastic start to his Test career against New Zealand last November with a century on debut in Kanpur. Hogg backed that up with an exceptional first-innings 92 off 98 balls on a raging turner versus Sri Lanka in Bangalore facing the skiddy pink ball.
“(Shreyas) Iyer is going to spend a number of years batting alongside (Virat) Kohli, learning the game for the longer form and being able to develop a game plan where he is going to succeed.
And then you’ve got (Prasidh) Krishna, who will be coming up alongside Bumrah and Shami. So that is a good policy to rotate the players,”
he said.
Rahane’s axing from the Test team had been imminent for a while. The experienced batter had struggled with inconsistency and loss of his basic technique at the crease for over two-three years. Since the start of 2020, he has averaged 24.08 over 35 innings for India at the Test level, with only four scores of 50 or more.
Ishant’s case is more about the physical wear out in his bowling than a major dip in performance. The right-arm seamer has had a spree of injuries since the tour of New Zealand in early 2020, with each taking a toll on his body and not allowing him to run up in full steam.
The bowler has featured in only nine intermittent Tests for India over the past two and a half years. None of which came in South Africa, where India preferred Siraj, Shardul Thakur and Umesh Yadav ahead of him before ultimately dropping the pacer.
