Can India's 'Big 3' Redeem Themselves Or Think-Tank Would Look At New Options?

Virat Kohli. Cheteshwar Pujara. Rohit Sharma. The 'holy trinity' has given Indian fans joyous moments over the years but how future ready is India's Test batting as the trio is ready for their last dance. The seismic defeat during the WTC final at the Oval made it mandatory for the bigwigs to search for a solution to that question. Now! The failure of Pujara to kick on against Australia is severely hurting as he was perceived to be in fine fettle after his exploits with Sussex in the County Cricket. Pujara's last memorable innings remains that 77 against Australia in Sydney in 2021, and if we take out a 90 and 102 against Bangladesh at Chattogram in 2022, the cupboard has a bare look.

In fact, Pujara has played 17 Tests in the 2021-2023 WTC cycle and made 928 runs at an average of 32 with a solitary hundred, a record so underwhelming for a team's No. 3.

So, who is our next No 3? India tried Hanuma Vihari at that position during the home series against Sri Lanka in early 2022 and he returned with one fifty in 3 innings.

But that plan seemed to have shelved for the time being after Pujara returned to the side during the tour to Bangladesh later that year. We don't seem to have another option anywhere around the corner at the moment.

However, India's headache is not restricted to No. 3 as it trickles down to No. 4 as well, a position that belongs to modern-day great in Kohli.

Few other batsmen in the last decade have dominated the bowlers with Kohli's arrogance but now just the facade remains as he struggles to build those edifices in Test cricket.

He seemed to have found his range in white ball formats but India need more of Kohli the Test batsman when they hit the next WTC cycle (2023-25) during the tour to the West