willing to give Rishabh Pant. The feisty youngster from Delhi has all the trappings of the consummate ball-basher in the shorter formats, but during his brief run with the national team, he has been less hit and more miss. His left-handedness in the middle-order will be a tempting attraction in a squad singularly bereft of that option beyond Dhawan, but that alone can’t be the decisive factor.

While Pant has courted success in Test cricket, as evidenced by centuries in both England and Australion his first tour to both countries, his ODI numbers – as well as his almost bull-headed, dare-without-a-care approach – leave room for loads of skepticism. Both MSK Prasad, the chief selector, and skipper Virat Kohli have confirmed that he will get the game-time that couldallow him to blossom into his role. Pant must justify the faith reposed in him and embrace hitherto elusive consistency if he is to win the nod ahead of Dinesh Karthik, who has every reason to feel hard done by at being omitted from the squad for these five games. India’s quest for the fourth specialist pace-bowling choice, behind Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami, continues with various protagonists blowing more cold than hot. Khaleel Ahmed’s left-arm variety has been negated somewhat by his waywardness in T20Is, though in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy inter-state T20 tournament, he has picked up 12 wickets in his last four bowls for Rajasthan.

Neither Umesh Yadav nor Siddharth Kaul particularly caught the eye during the two T20s against Australia, though