Team India's training camp is starting in Chennai, Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir will find answers to 3 big questions.
After a gap of more than a month, once again the likes of captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and coach Gautam Gambhir will be seen on the field. Team India, which has been on leave since the ODI series against Sri Lanka last month, is now going to return to action. Team India will play a Test series against Bangladesh from September 19 and to prepare for this series, the players of Team India will gather in the training camp starting in Chennai from Thursday, November 12. The selection committee had announced the squad only for the first Test and all these players will start practicing at the Chepauk Stadium. These will not be normal training sessions but will be a campaign to find answers to 3 big questions to deal with the Bangladeshi team that is suddenly looking dangerous.
After winning the T20 World Cup and then losing the ODI series against Sri Lanka, Team India is finally returning to the white jersey and red ball game. After a full 6 months of playing 5 Test matches against England between January and March, Team India will again be seen in action in this format. Not only this, senior players of the team like Rohit, Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah are returning after a break of one, two and about two and a half months. In such a situation, it will not be easy for the Indian players to bring themselves back into match practice. Most of the players of the Test squad have already prepared themselves a bit by playing the first round of the Duleep Trophy last week. In such a situation, Team India has to find answers to 3 big questions.
A balanced playing XI
The first big question before Rohit and Gambhir will be to decide the playing eleven. In training camps held before any Test, ODI or T20 series, the main objective is to decide the playing eleven after looking at the rhythm of the players. The challenge before Team India is whether to play with 3 spinners and 2 pacers or 4 spinners and 1 pacer. If there are only 3 spinners, then Ashwin and Jadeja's place is confirmed but who will get a chance among Akshar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav? Similarly, the top-4 place in the batting order is confirmed but who should be chosen at number five? Should we trust KL Rahul or give a chance to Sarfaraz Khan, who has currently been sent for the second round match in the Duleep Trophy. It will be important to find the answer to these questions.
Plan to deal with the threat of spinners
In recent years, Indian batsmen have had to face trouble against spinners on their own pitches and this is the situation when Team India has not faced much quality spin bowling, except Australia's Nathan Lyon. In this regard, Bangladesh will pose a bigger challenge, which has two excellent spinners in the form of Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Shakib Al Hasan. Both these bowlers have not only proved to be a problem for the batsmen on their home ground but were also a major reason for the team's victory in Pakistan recently. This problem is also more because Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, and Shubman Gill have been troubled a lot by spinners, while Rohit Sharma has also been losing wickets to left-arm spinners. If coach Gambhir makes his players better at this task, then this camp will be successful.
How to trust the middle order?
Captain Rohit Sharma has been in great form in Test cricket for the last 4-5 years. He has played an important role in Team India's victory in the country as well as abroad. At the same time, young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant have also been successful in this format due to their aggressive batting. The problem is at number three, fourth, and fifth, where the batting of Shubman Gill, Kohli, and Rahul is under question. Before scoring 2 centuries in the series against England, Gill was constantly under question and the sword of being dropped from the team was hanging over him. He handled himself but it is difficult to say whether he has still been able to win full trust.
The whole world is witness to the poor form of Kohli and Rahul, but both of them played some excellent innings in South Africa. However, when Kohli was not present against England, Rahul was seen struggling in the 2-3 innings he played. In such a situation, after returning from a long break, there will be a danger of him failing on spin-friendly pitches again, and reducing this danger will be a challenge for the coach and captain.