NEW DELHI: Former India cricketer and ex-chief selector of the senior men's cricket team Sunil Joshi on Tuesday picked his India Playing XI for the opening Test of the four-match series against Australia. Joshi, who has played 15 Tests and 69 ODIs for India between 1996 and 2001, preferred India's limited-overs star Suryakumar Yadav at No. 3 in his playing eleven and dropped the Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara from his predicted team for the opening Test.
"Will India line up like this in the first test? Deliberation between Pujara & Surya,a tough draw between both lefties Kuldeep & Axar. Here’s my XI: R Sharma, Shubhman Gill, Surya (should get first look in ), V Kohli, KL Rahul, KS Bharat, R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Kuldeep Y, M Shami, M Siraj," Joshi wrote.
Ignoring Pujara, a veteran of 98 Tests, for Suryakumar, who is yet to play a Test match in his career, didn't go down well with the fans and they started slamming Joshi.
Pujara has played 98 Tests so far and scored 7014 runs at an average of 44.39. He also has three double centuries, 19 hundreds and 34 fifties under his belt.
The highly anticipated four-Test series between India and Australia will begin on February 9 at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur.
India hold the Border-Gavaskar Trophy having won the last three series between the two teams, including their breakthrough triumphs Down Under in 2018-19 and 2020-2021.