Ruturaj Gaikwad or Yashasvi Jaiswal? Decoding the apt replacement for Pujara in Test squad

The Indian cricket team management after the team's poor performance in the World Test Championship against Australia dropped senior team batter Cheteshawar Pujara from the Test squad against West Indies. In his place, a few new faces including Ruturaj Gaikwad and Yashasvi Jaiswal have been included in the team. 

 3 things you need to know

• Team India will play against West Indies in a two-match Test series starting from July 12, 2023
• Rohit Sharma will lead Team India in the upcoming Test series against West Indies 
• Team India has plenty of new faces like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Mukesh Kumar in the 16-member squad

The Indian cricket team put in a poor batting performance against Australia in the World Test Championship 2023 Final. The Aussies led by Pat Cummins posted a huge total of 469 runs in the first innings and Team India needed a solid batting effort to make a comeback in the match. 

Big names like skipper Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, and Cheteshwar Pujara failed to score in the all-important final, and at last, the team ended up losing their eighth ICC knockout match in the last ten years. This was also Team India's second consecutive loss in the World Test Championship Final. 

Ruturaj Gaikwad or Yashasvi Jaiswal? 

The Indian cricket team management has dropped plenty of big names like Cheteshwar Pujara and Umesh Yadav from the Test squad due to their poor performance in the WTC 2023 Final. The selectors have included young names like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad to strengthen the team's batting. 

However, the team already has big names like skipper Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, and Ajinkya Rahane in the batting lineup and is searching for one batsman that could fill in the place of Cheteshwar Pujara. 

READ MORE | Was Pujara unfortunate to be dropped? A look at his performance in Tests in last one year

Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad both performed extremely well for their teams in the Indian Premier League 2023 and also have come up with big scores in domestic cricket. 

Jaiswal on one end while playing for the Rajasthan Royals made a total of 625 runs from 14 games and was also placed at number 5 in the list of the top five run-getters of the tournament. Ruturaj Gaikwad was splendid while opening the innings for CSK and made 590 runs from 16 matches. He was also CSK's second-highest run-getter after Devon Conway. 

READ MORE | PCB's demand for ODI WC squashed by ICC, India will play Pakistan at Narendra Modi Stadium

While Ruturaj Gaikwad has also played for the team in the white ball format, Yashasvi Jaiswal was included in the team's reserved players for the WTC 2023 Final against Australia. 

Jaiswal has the upper hand over Ruturaj 

Yashasvi Jaiswal was Team India's top scorer in the U19 World Cup 2020. Apart from this, Jaiswal has also been performing well in domestic cricket and has hit 1845 runs in 15 first-class games. Yashasvi's average has been 80.91 whereas he has also scored nine hundreds and two half-centuries in the 26 first-class innings he has played. 

Getting to Ruturaj Gaikwad's performance in first-class cricket, the numbers are not very satisfying as it has been seven years since the Maharashtra batsman made his debut, and has only made 1941 runs in 28 matches at an average of 42.19. Gaikwad's numbers in List A and T20 cricket have been way better than the red ball format.