Virat Kohli's selection can make way for another Indian at Trent Bridge

The Indian team isn’t in good stead ahead of the third Test at Trent Bridge in Nottingham against England, starting August 18. Virat Kohli and his men had a golden chance to roll over the home team at Edgbaston in Birmingham, however, they stumbled at the finishing line and lost by 31 runs. They couldn’t turn their fortunes around at Lord’s and slumped further to go 0-2 down in the series.

The batters floundered perilously and were shot out for paltry scores on both instances at the Home of Cricket. Subsequently, India lost by an innings and 159 runs. To make things worse, Kohli, the Indian skipper, developed a back injury and has become uncertain to play the third match. He is the currently the leading run scorer in the series with 240 runs at an average of 60.

Who comes in?

Recently, he was seen practicing with full intensity prior to the upcoming encounter. Nevertheless, the chance of him playing the match can’t be confirmed at the present point of time. If he plays, then the axe is most likely to come down on either of KL Rahul and Murali Vijay, both of whom hadn’t had impressive campaigns thus far in the series, as per reports in The Times of India (TOI).

In that scenario, Shikhar Dhawan, who was dropped for the second Test may make a comeback into the eleven. While Vijay has scored 26 runs at an average of 6.50, Rahul has crawled to 35 runs in the two matches at an average of 8.75. Moreover, Vijay managed to bag a pair at Lord’s and fell prey to James Anderson’s viciousness with the brand new cherry.

Rahul came into the team on the backs of his stupendous performances in limited-overs cricket but hasn’t been able to translate the same in red-ball cricket. The rest of the batting lineup, barring Kohli, hasn’t delivered as well. Dinesh Karthik, who is playing as Wriddhiman Saha’s replacement, has flattered to deceive and Uttarakhand-born Rishabh Pant may get an opportunity to play.

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