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Cheteshwar Pujara dissects the selection of Dinesh Karthik over Rishabh Pant

image-l7dqmdvjPant was dropped against Pakistan (PC: Twitter)

The cricket fraternity was in for a huge surprise on Sunday when Rohit Sharma announced the playing XI against Pakistan without Rishabh Pant. India had a massive selection headache for the Asia Cup 2022 as they had to make a difficult choice between Dinesh Karthik and Pant.

The skipper Rohit decided to go with the RCB wicketkeeper. Dropping Pant was a big call considering the young rookie’s ability to perform in crucial games. While there have been a lot of opinions on Karthik and Pant, India’s Test veteran Cheteshwar Pujara also joined the bandwagon.

Impossible for India to play both Pant and Karthik

The batter believes that it is impossible for India to include both the wicketkeepers in the squad. India have a settled opening pair of Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul followed by Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, and Hardik Pandya in the middle. The team can afford to add only one specialist batter as they need to have at least five bowling options.

Talking to ESPNcricinfo, Pujara mentioned,

"It's a big headache for the team management as both (Pant and Karthik) are doing really well in T20 format. The call is whether you want someone to bat at No.5 or you want a finisher who can bat at No.6 or 7.

"So, I would say, if you want someone at No.5, Rishabh Pant is a better choice. But if you want to have a batting line-up with a very good finisher who is likely to play 10 or 20 balls and give you 40-50 runs, I think DK (Karthik) is the better option.”

Pujara on whether India should drop Suryakumar Yadav

Pujara believes that the only way for India to play both Karthik and Pant will be by dropping Suryakumar Yadav. However, this won’t be an ideal thing to do considering the Mumbai batter is the top-ranked Indian player in the T20I batters rankings by ICC. He is just behind Babar Azam in the esteemed list.

Notably, Karthik didn’t have much to do in Dubai against Pakistan. The batter ended up with a score of one run off one ball as Pandya finished the game with a massive six off Mohammad Nawaz.

Also Read: 'It's a massive surprise'- Gautam Gambhir on Rishabh Pant's snub