Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
From being outright favorites to whitewashing England in the five-match Test series, India have almost turned into underdogs in the ongoing home series against England after a shocking 28-run defeat to the Ben Stokes-led outfit at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad last week.
The Rohit Sharma-led team will step onto the field at the Dr. Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam, facing an uphill task to ensure they can level the series and do not end up conceding a 2-0 lead. Already without star batter Virat Kohli, the team has lost the services of talisman batter KL Rahul and veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja due to injuries, leaving the team extremely short on experience.
India’s First Test Match in 4464 Days…..
The Visakapatnam Test match will be the first in 12 years, three months, in which India will roll out a playing XI in a Test match without either Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara, or Ajinkya Rahane in the line-up. The four alongside Ravichandran Ashwin have been the core of the unprecedented success India has achieved in the last decade in red-ball cricket.
In fact, the second Test match set to begin on Friday (February 2) will also be the first home Test match in the same period without just Kohli and Jadeja not playing. In fact, this time period has seen India play 119 Test matches, and at least one of the two have been in the playing XI in all of India’s test matches across the globe, apart from two, which were the historic victory at Gabba in 2021 and against South Africa in Jo’burg in 2022.
The last Test match India played all four missing from the playing XI and also without neither of Kohli and Jadeja at home was the 2nd Test match of a three-match series against West Indies in 2011 (14th November) at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens. It was in the third match of the same series at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium that Kohli earned a recall to the Test team and he has never been dropped since then. Cheteshwar Pujara cemented his place in the team a few months later while Ravindra Jadeja and Ajinkya Rahane made their debuts in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
While Kohli and Jadeja are still vital parts of the team’s plans, the team management has seemingly moved past Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, with the team evidently in transition in the hope of youngsters stepping up to the plate.
