Exciting times for Indian Cricket fans with 18-year-old prodigy Prithvi Shaw named to debut for his country against the West Indies starting on Thursday in Rajkot.
It was a hotly contested opportunity to sit at the top of the order batting alongside KL Rahul. Shaw and Mayank Agarwal were vying for the top job after regular test batsmen Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan were axed from the side following ordinary performances in the 4-1 series loss to England.
Shaw is a right-handed batsman and was touted as a future test cricketer back at age 14 when he scored 546 runs in a school cricket match. Shaw captained the Indian Under-19’s team to success in the World Cup at the start of 2018 and has scored seven centuries from only 14 first class matches, with an average of 56.72.
Virat Kohli looks set to play five specialist batsmen complimented with five frontline bowlers. However, the final side is uncertain with Kohli naming three quicks and three spinners in the squad of twelve. If India chose to select all three pacemen, Shardul Thakur looks set to make his debut also.
Hanuma Vihari is desperately unlucky not to be selected in the opening game of the series after debuting for India against England in their final test. Vihari took three wickets in the second innings at Kennington Oval, which included scalps of the English captain Joe Root and outgoing champion batsmen Alistair Cook.
India’s squad for the 1st test:
KL Rahul
Prithvi Shaw
Cheteshwar Pujara
Virat Kohli (c)
Ajinkya Rahane
Rishabh Pant
Ravichandran Ashwin
Ravindra Jadeja
Kuldeep Yadav
Mohammed Shami
Umesh Yadav
Shardul Thakur
