The spotlight would firmly be on out of favour veterans like Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir when India A seek revenge for the opening match humiliation against the West Indies A in their second unofficial Test starting here tomorrow.
Led by Cheteshwar Pujara, India A were beaten by a massive 162 runs in the opening match in Mysore.
It will be interesting to see how Pujara handles the team filled with heavyweights such as Sehwag, Gambhir and pacer Zaheer Khan , who have been out of the national team for different reasons.
Sehwag has not scored a century in 30 Test innings while Gambhir's dry run with the bat has seen him without a century in 40 innings since January 2010.
Zaheer too has not been in good form, failing to take five wickets in a Test innings since October 2010, and his fitness and endurance has been a concern too.
After the 2011 World Cup, he played just seven Tests, breaking down in England.
This match would be quite testing for Sehwag and Gambhir, who have had a poor run in the NKP Challenger Trophy as well.
With the kind of experience, they would be eager to get big scores under their belt and make it difficult for the national selectors to ignore them for the upcoming West Indies series.
In the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy, while Sehwag scored 72 runs with a half century in three ODIs, Gambhir scored a mere 24 in two innings.
Pujara would also look at Zaheer, who spent time in the south of France with Yuvraj Singh, to bolster the Indian attack, which was out of sorts in the Mysore Test. They were a great disappointment as Ishwar Pandey and Mohammad Shami did not fire in both the innings.
