Virender Sehwag names the openers for the Australia Test series

India will be playing a four-Test series against Australia Down Under this winter in their third overseas series in a year. The first Test will be played in Adelaide from December 6. The team’s squad for the series has already been announced and it includes three openers – Murali Vijay, KL Rahul and newcomer Prithvi Shaw. Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag is of the opinion that Shaw and Rahul should open for India for they are more attacking players.

The duo recently opened in the two-Test series against the Windies in which Shaw made a remarkable debut. India had carried Vijay, Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan as openers to England but none of the three managed to score consistently. While Vijay was dropped midway to make way for Shaw who didn’t play, Dhawan was discarded as the Test opener after the series. Rahul saved his place in the side after scoring a hundred in the final innings of the Test series in England at the Oval.

“Prithvi and Rahul should open. Because the trend Down Under is that whoever is an attacking batsman makes a lot of runs and wins matches for the team,” Sehwag, who was an important member of the Sourav Ganguly-led Indian side that toured Australia in 2003-04 and hit a magnificent 195 in Melbourne, told India TV.

Rohit should be in playing XI

On the inclusion of Rohit Sharma in the Test squad, Sehwag said the premier opening batsman should figure in the playing eleven. “Definitely Rohit should be part of the playing XI. A player who has scored 3 double hundreds in ODIs shouldn’t be sitting out of Tests. I have been repeating this for a long time now,” the 40-year-old former swashbuckling cricketer added.

Sharma was discarded as a Test player after his failure in the Test series in South Africa earlier this year. He wasn’t considered for any long-format squad since then but his tremendous run with the bat of late saw him making a comeback to the Test squad.

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