"We need two spinners playing...": Rohit Sharma on Tanush Kotian's selection

Ahead of the fourth Test match against Australia Team India skipper Rohit Sharma backed allrounder Tanush Kotian by saying that his performances in domestic cricket over the last two years have shown that he belongs to this level of the sport and is a good option for the teamAhead of the fourth Test Team Indias think tank decided to hand Tanush Kotian his maiden callup He is added as the replacement of spin legend Ravichandran Ashwin who recently announced his retirement from international cricketSpeaking in the prematch presser Rohit Sharma said that Kuldeep is not 100 per cent fit and had a hernia surgery while other spinbowling allrounder Axar Patel has recently been blessed with a baby Moreover Tanush had the experience of playing the India AAustralia A series before the BGT Kotian featured in the second tour game in Melbourne where despite falling for a duck in the first innings Kotian returned with 44 runs and snapped a wicket in the secondYeah Tanush was here a month back for the Australia A series And Kuldeep Yadav I do not think has a visa laughs And we wanted somebody to get here as quickly as possible Tanush was the one who was ready and he played here the skipper Rohit Sharma saidNot that Tanush is not good enough He has shown in the last two years what he has done in domestic cricket And we really wanted just a backup in case you know we need two spinners playing here or in Sydney you need a backup optionAlso ReadVirat need to do find a way to continue staying at the crease Matthew HaydenKuldeep obviously is not 100 per cent fit He recently went through a hernia surgery And the other options like Axar he had a baby so he is not going to travel So Tanush was the right option for us at this point And he has certainly shown in the domestic level what he is capable ofHe is probably one of the reasons why Mumbai has gone on to win the Ranji Trophy last year He played a major role as an allrounder in fact So a very good option for us in case we need him Just so that all areas are covered he concludedTanush Kotian has been added to the squad as the spin allrounder who is also handy with the willow as wellKotian made his firstclass debut for Mumbai in 2018 aged just 20 picking up two wickets against Saurashtra in the first innings Since then he has accumulated 101 firstclass wickets in the format averaging 2570 from 33 outings He has been a mainstay in Mumbais Ranji Trophy squad with his batting coming to the fore as well he has scored 1525 runs so far including two centuries and 13 halfcenturies at an average of 4121As Mumbai lifted the Ranji trophy this year Kotian finished as the Player of the Tournament with 29 wickets while also scoring 502 runs at an impressive average of 4183 including a century and five fifties in 14 inningsIn the ongoing redball season in India the 26yearold has 12 wickets under his belt from five matchesSpeaking about star India batter Virat Kohlis decline in form and tendency to fall consistently to outside offstump balls Rohit backed the modernday great saying he will figure out his own way out of that pathFans would be eager to witness the stunning performances from Virat Kohli This year across all the formats the righthander has been able to garner 614 runs with an average of 2192 So far he has one century and two halfcenturies to his name with the top score of unbeaten 100 runsIn nine Tests this year he has scored 376 runs at an average of 2506 with just a century and fifty to his name in 17 innings His best score is 100The decade of 2020s has not been kind to Virat Kohli the Test batter In 37 Tests and 64 innings he has managed just 1964 runs at an average of 3167 with just three centuries and nine fifties and best score of 186In the ongoing ICC World Test Championship final Virat has scored 687 runs at an average of 3615 in 12 matches and 21 innings with two centuries and three fifties and the best score of 121Indias squad for fourth and fifth Tests Rohit Sharma C Jasprit Bumrah VC Yashasvi Jaiswal Abhimanyu Easwaran Shubman Gill Virat Kohli KL Rahul Rishabh Pant WK Sarfaraz Khan Dhruv Jurel WK Ravindra Jadeja Mohd Siraj Akash Deep Prasidh Krishna Harshit Rana Nitish Kumar Reddy Washington Sundar Devdutt Padikkal Tanush KotianWith ANI Inputs