Twitter Reactions: Indian selectors surprise most with the squad for England Tests

The Indian selectors announced the Indian Test squad for the first two games of the five-match series against England that starts from November 9 at Rajkot. They weren’t expected to make a lot of changes since the team did really well in the previous series against New Zealand and most of the players in the team have been performing quite consistently.

There were a few players who missed out due to injuries- Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma were reportedly unavailable for selection and Gautam Gambhir, Karun Nair and Hardik Pandya were thus included in the team. Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar who was in as a replacement for Ishant Sharma and was then replaced by Shardul Thakur for the last Test is yet to recover while Ishant is all fit and raring to have a go at the English team.

Opener Murali Vijay will have Gambhir as his partner while Cheteshwar Pujara will take up the No. 3 position, with skipper Virat Kohli at 4 and vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane to follow. Hardik is included in the XI will take up Rohit’s place while the two spin bowling all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will sum up the batting might of the team.

It will also be interesting to see if Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble push ahead with four bowlers strategy that they opted for in the New Zealand series or go for five bowlers making it a three spinners: two pacers attack. With Pandya, they also have the option of playing an additional batsman given he can bowl with the new ball and has the ability to swing the ball and can hit the deck hard as well.

Also check out- Twitterati express shock over Hardik Pandya inclusion for England series

While most were surprised with Pandya’s inclusion and Rohit’s exclusion here is how Twitter reacted to the Indian team selection:

https://twitter.com/holdingwilley/status/793728188304142336