Accident’The Quint

Australia on Thursday, 8 November, rested lead pacer Mitchell Starc and senior spinner Nathan Lyon for the T20 series against South Africa and India. The one-off T20 against South Africa will be played in Gold Coast on 17 November while the three-match series against Virat Kohli-led India starts in Brisbane on 21 November. The other players rested ahead of a busy home season are pacer Peter Siddle and all-rounder Mitchell Marsh while Marcus Stoinis and Jason Behrendorff make a comeback.

So far, 294 players have had the privilege of representing the Indian Cricket team in the Test matches of which 33 have gone on to lead the nation. Sachin is the most capped Indian Test cricketer and MS Dhoni has captained India in more number of Tests- 60 of which the Indians won 23, lost 18 and drawn 15. While some players like Sachin Tendulkar and recently young prodigy, Prithvi Shaw (no comparisons please) announced their arrival at the International stage through Test matches, some could not.

All-rounders have always been much sought after entities in world cricket, and all the more in Indian cricket. The world has gone gaga after the emergence of Hardik Pandya on to the international circuit in 2016, and rightly so. Hardik has tick-marked all the boxes required to make it to at the highest level as an all-rounder, the kind India had been searching since long. Amidst all this, there was a senior Pandya, silently waiting in the wings for his moment to come.