Team India has been announced for the first two matches of the 5-match Test series against England, but the squad for the final three matches is expected to be selected after around three weeks. This selection is based on the players' performance in the first two matches and their good performance in the Ranji Trophy played during this period. While there is no possibility of much change in Team India's bowling line-up, some experienced players can definitely make an impact in the batting.
Cheteshwar Pujara recently raised hopes of his comeback by scoring a double century in the Ranji Trophy. He is consistently performing well in domestic cricket. Furthermore, Mayank Agarwal also returned to form in the red-ball game by scoring a century in Ranji. If these two players play similar innings in the next few games, they can cement their claim for the final three Test matches against England.
Mayank Agarwal is the captain of Karnataka. He scored a wonderful century against Gujarat on Saturday. He played an innings of 109 runs off 124 balls. Due to this innings from Mayank, the Karnataka team is inching towards a big lead in this match to be played at the Ahmedabad stadium. Here, Gujarat had scored 264 runs in the first innings, in return, the Karnataka team had scored 328 runs at the end of the second day's play after losing five wickets.
Mayank had returned to the pavilion with zero in both innings against Punjab in the last Ranji game. In such a situation, this innings will increase the enthusiasm and excitement for him. Mayank has not been part of Team India's Test squad for a long time. He last played a test match in March 2022. He had to be dropped from the team after persistent poor performances in Test cricket.
Mayank started his international career with his Test debut. He made his international debut at the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne in December 2018. He has played 21 Test matches so far in his career. Here he scored 1488 runs at an average of 41.33. He also pitched 10 big innings during this time. He scored 4 centuries and 6 half-centuries. Mayank also had the chance to play One Day International during his career. However, he failed miserably in this format. In 5 ODI matches, he could only score 86 runs at an average of 17.20.