Team India wants Prithvi Shaw as opener in England | Cricket News – Times of India

Shubman Gill out for six to eight weeks due to shin splints
MUMBAI: Opener Shubman Gill will be taking a flight home, boarding with two shin splints – medial tibial stress syndrome – that are a result of stress-related workload.
Gill did not get injured during any training session and TOI understands that the splint is merely a result of his off-field training workload, which can be very common among professional athletes. The nature of the splint continues to be under diagnosis but what is clear already is that Gill will have to stay out of cricket for at least six to eight weeks.

That has opened a debate on who should replace him in England. Mayank Agarwal, who had a prolific run as an opener between 2018 and 2019, is part of the 24-member squad that travelled to England. Also available is Bengal’s Abhimanyu Easwaran, who is part of the contingent as a ‘standby’.
Easwaran is an opening batsman with 64 First Class matches under his belt but without an international cap yet. The 25-year-old enjoyed a very successful 2018-19 season in domestic cricket but wasn’t able to carry on in the same vein next year. Although always on the minds of the national selectors, there’s a huge question looming on whether Team India can afford to depend on this young man alone to be the ‘spare opener’ in England over the next 70-odd days.
It is learnt the Indian team would “rather prefer” that Prithvi Shaw be flown to England at the earliest and is expected to raise this as a formal request with the BCCI.
Prithvi, after disappointing tours of New Zealand and Australia, returned home to unleash absolute fury in the Vijay Hazare one-dayers this season, becoming the first ever cricketer to score 800-plus runs in a single edition of the tournament. In doing so, he also broke MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli’s record of the highest individual score by an Indian batsman in a List A chase, thereby marking his return to India’s white-ball team touring Sri Lanka.
“Here is a batsman in absolute form right now, playing an inconsequential series (in Sri Lanka) whereas he can be in England and the team will have a cushion to fall back on. It’s been five days now and the selectors haven’t even blinked yet,” say sources tracking developments.
The team sees KL Rahul as a possible replacement in the middle-order, but certainly not as an opener right now.
The Indian team’s primary worry, and rightly so, is the prospect of either Rohit Sharma or Mayank Agarwal not being available for a single Test or more in the coming months. “Then what do they do? Just fall back on Easwaran in a series as important as this?” add sources.
While there’s no debate whatsoever that Prithvi should be heading to England, if the team wants him around, the BCCI officials, who had gathered in Mumbai the last three days for “administration-related work”, haven’t nudged the national selectors yet.
“As against having to fall back on a batsman (Easwaran) who last did his bit in the First-Class circuit more than two seasons ago and not many have seen much of lately, isn’t it more sensible to have a batsman (Prithvi) who’s in form and the elements to his batting well-documented already? The team knows Prithvi, understands Prithvi. If they think he should be in England, then there’s no reason why the BCCI should not be sending him,” say those in the know.
The BCCI clearly needs to decide quickly because Shaw is currently in Sri Lanka and will have to undergo all quarantine protocols before he can join the team, should he be packed off to England.