According to The Times of India, Washington Sundar has a 90% chance of staying in the Indian side for the second test in Adelaide. Sundar is expected to stay in India’s starting lineup for the pink-ball, second test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, which begins on December 6.

The decision was kind of unexpected as the Adelaide pitch is reported to be a spin friendly pitch and India has selected Washington Sundar over seasoned spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin with much more experience. India won by a commanding 295 runs in the Perth Test. Despite bowling statistics of 0/1 and 2/48 and hitting 4 and 29 with the bat, Sundar’s all-around performances with both bat and ball were crucial to India’s triumph that pushed the Indian squad management to pick him. After the dismissals of Devdutt Padikkal, Rishabh Pant and Dhruv Jurel, following a historic 201-run opening stand between centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul, Sundar and Kohli looked to rebuild. Virat Kohli and Washington Sunder stitched an 89-run stand, with Kohli doing most of the scoring, until the partnership was broken by Nathan Lyon in the 126th over of India’s second innings when he dismissed Sunder for 48 runs.

There are still other speculations about the opening pair and the position of KL Rahul as Captain Rohit Sharma makes a straight entry into the Indian batting lineup and Shubman Gill’s uncertain return while he was playing in the India-PM XI match. It would be interesting to see the visitors might make several modifications to their playing XI for the sake of team balance. While Devdutt Padikkal is all set to make room for Shubman Gill, skipper Rohit, for a change, could take up Dhruv Jurel’s number six position.