Jaffer, Karthik and Uthappa better than Mukund? Excellent.... Hope you never get anywhere close to any selection committee post. Do you know anything about opening in test cricket? Mukund has been a prolific test scorer in domestic circuit. Also he is replacing an opener. Only Jaffer in that list is an opener, but he is a discard material (given lot of chances and never proved himself well)
In tests,
What wrong has Jaffer done? he has been so consistent in the domestic arena and also has international experience, we just want a temporary opener when Sehwag or Gambhir is injured, Jaffer is the best choice for that.
If not Jaffer, then out of the youngsters,Ajinkya Rahane has and Average of 67 in domestic cricket playing as a number 3 batsmen and has also opened the innings a lot of times, so there is no reason to select Mukund over him. Rahane has 17 centuries and 18 fifties in 79 innings as compared to Abhinav Mukund's 13 centuries and 10 fifties in 73 innings. Rahane also has a much better technique than Mukund.
No doubt Mukund is talented, but he needs time, it will be very difficult if he does not perform in the current test series, the management should not take a chance on him by selecting him right now, it will be too difficult on him if he finds himself out of the team, because Sehwag and Gambhir are anyways going to be the openers for the next few years, it will be difficult for Mukund to make a comeback if he does not click in the current season,
on the other hand, Jaffer has the experience, both domestic and international, he won't have any problems even if he gets dropped and picked only as a temporary replacement for Sehwag and Gambhir as he has 2 3 years of cricket left in him.
And even in case of Rahane, you can take a chance with him, he has number 3 and opening experience, whether he works or fails, he is likely to get his opportunities in the future as most of the senior players like Laxman, Dravid and Sachin are in the middle order and are not going to continue for more than 2 years, he will get his chances for number 3 or 4 spot if the team requires.
I don't wish Mukund to get wasted like some of the other talented players under the current management.
And in ODIs, Karthik and Uthappa are better options than Vijay,
Uthappa did not get proper chances under Dhoni,
he kept on changing his batting positions and used him very wrongly,
have a look at his batting positions under MSD,
3,3,6,5,7,5,6,7,6,3,7,7,7,3,7,1,1,1,6,2,7.
This is the reason why he performed so well under Dravid and performed badly and got dropped under MSD.
Dravid gave him a settled role, MSD didn't. You cannot blame MSD for that as Uthappa cannot make it in the top order as Sehwag ,Gambhir and Sachin are doing a great job at it,it would have been wise if he was selected only in case of Sehwag, Sachin and Gambhir's absence( i mean in case they take a rest or they injured) in the playing 11. Instead he was just floated up and down the order.
and speaking of Karthik, he just had 1 bad series despite of the way he was getting his chances in bits and pieces, he had 1 bad series but have a look at his 20 innings before that,
66, 40, 27, 33, 18, 22 ,11 , 79, 44, 34, 48, 19 not out, 32not out, 34, 16, 4 , 47, 4, 67.
He provided good starts to India in 11 out of 20 of these above innings.
So there was no reason to drop him that way.
And also its difficult to select a Vijay over Uthappa in case of Sehwag or Sachin's injury as they both are aggressive openers, Vijay is quite defensive on the other hand and has poor shot selection in shorter formats. We want attacking openers in the ODIs to make use of the powerplay and put the opposition under pressure.
Uthappa is quite aggressive as an opener, and Karthik is a player who would play according to the conditions, he can accelerate when needed and can even play defensive if required....
