Former England skipper Michael Vaughan believes that India missed a trick by not picking Ravindra Jadeja in the playing XI for the second Test of the four-match series in Perth.
India went into the match with four pacers in the line-up and no front-line spinner. The trio of Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah — who starred in 31-run Adelaide win — were joined by speedster Umesh Yadav in Perth.
Ravinchandran Ashwin was ruled out of the match due to injury and he was replaced in the 13-man squad by Ravindra Jadeja. But the all-rounder failed to make it into the playing XI and Vaughan feels that India’s tail looks a bit vulnerable.
Not just with his bowling but Jadeja could’ve added valuable runs with the bat, something which the Indian tail-enders haven’t done for a long time now. Moreover, Bhuvneshwar Kumar — who is also very handy with the bat — failed to seal a spot in the XI.
Earlier, Australia captain Tim Paine won the toss and elected to bat first in the second test, backing his under-pressure lineup to get through expected pace-friendly conditions.
India captain Virat Kohli said India would have batted as well if he had won the toss but was looking at the positive.
“But (it’s) not a bad thing to bowl on the first day on a pitch which has a lot of grass on it,” he said.
“As batsmen, we’ll have to see how the wicket behaves and it might not be a bad thing to see how it plays out. We’ll look to get in with the ball in the first hour and make some inroads.”
