MSK Prasad’s tenure as the chief selector of the Indian cricket team is set to end. Gagan Khoda, one of the selectors will also leave the panel along with Prasad while Jatin Paranjpe, Sarandeep Singh, and Devang Gandhi still have a year remaining.
Prasad during a media interaction spoke about Indian cricket and picked ten best back-ups for current Indian team. He named four batsmen and six bowlers who are ready to grab their opportunities.
Prasad chose Abhimanyu Easwaran and Priyank Panchal as back-up openers and said, “If you take the case of openers, now with Rohit (Sharma) stepping up, you have Rohit, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran and Priyank Panchal. On any given day, any of these guys can open for India. That’s how we have groomed them from a systematic process through India A tours.”
Easwaran and Panchal, The Bengal and Gujarat openers impressed the selectors after prolific domestic showings and scored 861 and 898 runs, averaging 95 and 60, respectively. The other two batsmen preferred by Prasad are Prithvi Shaw and KL Rahul. Whilst Shaw made his presence feel in the Ranji Trophy Rahul showed his class in limited overs cricket despite struggling in longer format.
Indian bowling unit is one of the richest in contemporary cricket and boasting of names like Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, and Umesh Yadav. In recent times Indian cricket has produced a bunch of brilliant bowling talents that is capable of representing India in international level. No wonder Prasad had a list of six youngsters as back-ups for India’s fast bowling.
The outgoing chief explained, “Talking of fast bowling back-ups, we have Navdeep Saini, Avesh Khan, Basil Thampi, Sandeep Warrier, Ishant Porel and Mohammed Siraj. So, there is a bench for every slot. I am sure this will pave the way and strengthen the Indian team across all formats.”
Navdeep Saini, the Delhi boy has the ability to deliver consistently with an upright seam and hit a searching length. The selectors have been eying on Avesh Khan as the 23-year-old was a net bowler in India’s tour to South Africa. The emerging cricketer of 2017 Indian Premier League, Basil Thampi who initially started as a T20 bowler already has 72 first-class wickets. Apart from Thampi another bowler that MSK Prasad chose from Kerala is Sandeep Warrier. It was back in 2013 when Warrier was first noticed by Virat Kohli but things did not work for him. Now thanks to his first-class records that he will going to New Zealand as part of India A. Ishan Porel from Bengal and Mohammed Siraj from Hyderabad are other two names taken by Prasad who will be going with India A to New Zealand to prove their worth.