The recent squad announcement for India’s upcoming two-match Test series against West Indies has garnered attention due to the exclusion of Cheteshwar Pujara. Pujara, who had a modest performance in the World Test Championship final against Australia, scoring 14 and 27, has been left out of the squad. Aakash Chopra, a former Indian cricketer, expressed his disappointment with the decision made by the BCCI’s selection committee and pointed out an interesting statistic regarding Pujara and Virat Kohli.
Chopra analyzed the period from January 2020 until the present, which includes the previous World Test Championship cycle, the tour of New Zealand, the 2020/21 series in Australia, and the home series against England. Without offering his personal opinion, Chopra highlighted that both Pujara and Kohli had the same batting average of 29.69 during this period. Pujara, despite being dropped at one point, made the most appearances for India in the last three years and scored 1455 runs in 28 matches, while Kohli managed 1277 runs in 25 matches.
“Now that Pujara is not there, the question is was it the right decision? I am not going to make an opinion. I’m only going to show a few numbers of Indian batters in Test cricket in the last three years. Rohit Sharma has scored the most runs with an average of 43 in 18 matches. Shubman Gill averages 32 in 16 matches and KL Rahul 30 in 11 matches. Pujara has an average of 29 in 28 matches. Kohli, during the same period, also has the same average as Pujara. The only difference is that Kohli has played three matches less than Pujara. Ajinkya Rahane, who has played 20 matches, his average is the worst in this list, which is 26.50,” Chopra said.