After a series of failures in Test matches, Virender Sehwag finally got the marching orders. The selectors dropped from the next two Test matches against Australia, but retained “average” performer Harbhajan Singh in the team. Sehwag was already dropped from the ODI team.
With two regular openers are out of the team, the onus will be on Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan and probably Ajinkya Rahane. Vijay had scored 167 runs in the second Test in Hyderabad. He and Cheteshwar Pujara added 370 runs for the second wicket to give a solid platform to India, which helped the team to score an innings victory over Australia.
Team:
MS Dhoni (C/WK), Sachin Tendulkar, Cheteshwar Pujara, Shikhar Dhawan, Murali Vijay, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Ishant Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.