Sri Lanka vs India: 5 Selection dilemmas for India in the limited-overs series

4) Persist with Kuldeep Yadav or pick Varun Chakravarthy or Rahul Chahar?

Kuldeep Yadav hasn’t been in the best of form, to say the least. Of late, he has been taken to the cleaners by several batsmen from the opposition teams. What if we were to tell you that Kuldeep Yadav has gone for 211 runs in his last 30 overs in ODI cricket!

The fact that he has picked just the one wicket in his last 3 ODIs does not help his cause either. Besides, the KKR spinner last played a T20I game in early 2020. In the meanwhile, Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Chahar have been magnificent in the last few IPL seasons.

While Rahul Chahar has been the lead spinner for the Mumbai Indians (MI) for quite a while now, Varun Chakravarthy has been an asset for KKR, so much so that he has kept Kuldeep Yadav himself out of KKR’s playing XI for the last two seasons. Thus, the picking wither of Varun or Rahul ahead of the experienced Kuldeep would be something India’s management would consider.

3) Give Manish Pandey another chance or get a debutant instead?

Manish Pandey has been playing international cricket for quite a while now. Despite all the talent, he has never been able to successfully seal a spot in the Indian team. Would this prompt India pick someone else ahead of him?

The Karnataka batsman has played 21 innings in ODIs and has scored 492 runs at an average and strike rate of 35.14 and 91.96 respectively. In the 33 T20I innings in which he has played, he has scored 709 runs at an average and strike rate of 44.31 and 126.61 respectively. While these numbers seem more than just decent, he hasn’t been able to consistently score runs for India despite several opportunities.

Players like Suryakumar Yadav, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devdutt Paddikal are waiting for their opportunities. It won’t be shocking if either of them ends up getting selected ahead of the Sunrisers Hyderabad batsman. Thus, giving Manish Pandey another go is going to be one of the most debatable topics during the series.