Xtra Time Web Desk: The injury to Shubman Gill is no doubt a massive blow for the Indian team management ahead of the all important test series against England. Although an official announcement is yet to come from BCCI, whether the young batsman is ruled out of the entire tour.
Gill has been a vital cog of the Test team since making his debut in Australia last December. The youngster from Punjab looked good in both innings in the recently concluded ICC World Test Championship Final against West Indies. There are back up openers in Indian team in the likes of Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul along with Bengal’s Abhimanyu Easwaran.
There is a section in the BCCI who feels Prithvi Shaw should be send to England. As per reports, the logic shown in favor of Prithvi is it will be much more important for the Mumbai batsman to be in England rather than playing an inconsequential series in Sri Lanka. He (Prithvi) can be a back up opener. One advantage the Mumbai batsman has over Easwaran is the Bengal opener played his last first class match two seasons back compared to Prithvi who has shown signs of improvement in recent times. He will not be an outsider to the team environment in England.
It will be unfortunate for Abhimanyu as the talented batsman did nothing wrong, scoring runs consistently in domestic cricket before the COVID-19 pandemic put a break in all sporting activities in the country. Abhimanyu has been part of the Indian set up and has been with the team in England. It will be grossly unfair to dump Abhimanyu without trying him out in the middle.