It's horses for courses in many ways – Ravi Shastri on India’s team selection for upcoming BGT

Team India is gearing up for a major challenge as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is only a few days away. With the conundrum around the players about who should be a part of the Indian cricket team for the mega-series, at least the first Test, former Indian coach Ravi Shastri pointed out that this shouldn’t be much of a headache for Sharma and company.

Talking to ICC Review, Shastri said, “It's horses for courses in many ways. Most of the team will pick themselves, but there'll be one or two cases where you might have to just go and dig deep and go with gut feeling. I would be watching them like a hawk in the nets, the batters and the bowlers, because for me as a bowler, rhythm is important. And as a batter, again, tempo and rhythm is important.”

Highlighting the spinning puzzles of India, Shastri said, “I would go with one spinner. I was in Perth last year when Pakistan played Australia. And in those conditions, to have two spinners is a luxury. You need pace because that track has pace and bounce. And you need the bowlers to exploit it and keep the pressure on the batsman. Because even if you're talking of spin, you use them sporadically. It was always a tough choice, even when I was the coach.”

Shastri continued, “For which one to pick now, Ashwin or Jadeja. So then again, it's current form over there. Jadeja brings a lot to the table with his fielding as well as batting. So he would get the edge more often than not overseas. But it's again how they see it and what the form looks like in the nets.”

The cricketing festivities start from 22nd November as India will be duking it out against Australia in a mega-five match Test series. This battle can very well be the decider of the fate of the two finalists going forth in the WTC championship.