‘If that means leaving Ashwin or Jadeja out, so be it’ – Veteran India batter’s bold statement on India’s bowling line-up for Test Championship final

India won the four-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2-1 on Monday, March 13. The top performers of the series were Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Shubman Gill, and Virat Kohli. Jadeja and Ashwin were awarded the Player of the Series award for their brilliant bowling performances. This series has belonged to the spinners as they took the majority of the wickets in the recently concluded series.

For India, Ashwin was the highest wicket-taker of the series as he grabbed 25 wickets, whereas Jadeja snapped 22 wickets, and Axar took only three wickets, but he performed brilliantly with the bat as he scored three fifties in the BGT series. For Australia, the highest wicket-taker was veteran off-spinner, Nathan Lyon, who was the joint second-highest wicket-taker, along with the Chennai franchise all-rounder with 22 scalps.

It’s a year-end match for a lot of the players in many ways: Dinesh Karthik

With World Test Championship final scheduled to take place from June 7 to June 11 at The Oval, after the completion of the Indian T20 League, India have to change their plans and look for new match-winners as the pitch would be more pace friendly than spin friendly. Axar is most likely to be rested depending on the overseas pitch conditions.

Star India wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik opined that all-rounder Shardul Thakur can be the like-to-like replacement for Axar in the WTC final’s playing XI for team India. “To be brutally honest if everybody is fit, especially if Ashwin and Jadeja are fit, you will have to say that Axar will miss out. I think Shardul will take his place,” Karthik was quoted as saying on Cricbuzz.

“Absolutely (India might play either Ashwin or Jadeja). To be honest, that’s where the Indian team made a mistake last time playing both spinners and they didn’t bowl them much. It’s a one-off game. You can’t look at it in the bigger scheme of things. It’s a year-end match for a lot of the players in many ways as after that there will be a fresh cycle. So you have to go into the match thinking ‘what is my best XI to win that game?’ If that means leaving Ashwin or Jadeja out, so be it. We’ve always seen Jadeja get the nod ahead because he can bat better,” the Bangalore franchise batter added.