Eden pitch sets up a tricky selection dilemma for India

Kuldeep should play but the colour of the wicket is prompting a bit of a rethink

- Somshuvra Laha [e-mail]

A Test tour that has come upon us with indecent haste is set to kick off on a tricky Eden Gardens pitch that has left India mulling a few bowling combinations.

Two spin-bowling allrounders and a specialist spinner, three spin-bowling allrounders, or two spinners and three seamers? Axar Patel may miss out if India go for the first option, plainly because Ravindra Jadeja is the senior leftarm spinner here with a slightly better batting average. Kuldeep Yadav could be the casualty in the other two combinations.

Shubman Gill wanted to keep the suspense alive till the toss, reasoning that the appearance of the pitch had sown some doubt. "This time of the year, there's always a conflict whether you would want to go for that extra allrounder or you want to go for an extra spinner," he said at the press conference here on Thursday. "But once we come tomorrow, see how the wicket looks in the morning, we are going to take a decision. It's (the eleven) more or less finalised. But I think when we came yesterday, the look of the wicket was a little different. Today it looks a little different."