Don’t leave out Vijay, Rahul just yet; play Pant too

six batsmen with Karun Nair slated to bat after Ajinkya Rahane. India went back in time to replace the injured Wriddhiman Saha. First it was Parthiv Patel and now, Dinesh Karthik. The problem of going backwards is that you tend to lose patience sooner than you should, for it takes only a couple of failures for the decade-old record to come back and haunt you.

THREE PACERS MUST

Parthiv’s omission was a little unceremonious and the same is likely to happen to Karthik soon. While it might sound a little unfair and unfortunate, I’ll be taking a chance with Rishabh Pant. To bounce back after a demoralising loss, you need an inspirational performance and the chances of it coming from a player who isn’t carrying baggage of failure are a lot more.

Considering the way the first two Test matches panned out, there’s merit in assuming that there’ll be help for faster bowlers at Trent Bridge too. If that’s indeed the case, there’s a strong case to play only one spinner in R Ashwin and three fast bowlers.

Even though Hardik has looked fairly assured with the bat, it might be prudent for him to makeway for a bowler who would qualify as a frontline seamer. If Jasprit Bumrah is fit, available and the team management is confident of him lasting the Test (since he hasn’t played a competitive game since the T20 in Ireland), it’ll be tempting to pick him ahead of Umesh Yadav.