BCCI Gives A Big Hint That KL Rahul Will Be Dropped In 3rd Test

BCCI Gives A Big Hint That KL Rahul Will Be Dropped In 3rd Test: India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by taking a 2-0 series lead in 4-Test series against Australia with a 6-wicket win in the Delhi Test, which, like the first Test in Nagpur, finished inside three days.

Hours after India recorded this victory in Delhi, the selection committee, currently without a chairman after Chetan Sharma’s resignation, sat down to select the team for the remaining two Tests of the series and the following 3-ODI series, and the BCCI announced the squads.

There is no player change in the Test squad for the next two matches – to be played in Indore and Ahmedabad. However, the selectors have sacked KL Rahul as the vice-captain of the side.

KL Rahul retains his place in the squad, but is not the vice-captain anymore

This means that KL Rahul’s position the XI is not certain anymore. Rahul had been the vice-captain in the first two Tests. Now, though, the opener has been sacked as Rohit Sharma’s deputy.

KL Rahul managed scores of 20, 17 and 1 in this series. The opener has now gone 10 Test innings without going past the score of 25.

Since the start of 2022, KL Rahul averages only 15 in 11 Test innings

KL Rahul’s poor form with the bat, not just in this series, but in the past year is concerning. At the start of the year, he lost his vice-captaincy post in white-ball cricket to Hardik Pandya, and now the 31-year-old is not the Test vice-captain. Though the BCCI did not name a vice-captain, it is believed that Cheteshwar Pujara is likely to don that role.

R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are other strong contenders to become Rohit’s next deputy.

Now that KL Rahul is not the vice-captain anymore, this could mean that the management will have it easier to drop Rahul and replace him with Shubman Gill than it would have been when he was the vice-captain.

Ajinkya Rahane, too, was last year dropped from the Test squad directly, but until he was in the side, he was the vice-captain.

India’s Test squad for third and fourth Test against Australia: Rohit Sharma (Captain), K L Rahul, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat.