Cheteshwar Pujara picks India and England's combined Test XI from 21st century, no place for Rohit Sharma

Cheteshwar Pujara, who has been out of the Indian team for the longest format of the game, has recently revealed his combined Test eleven, featuring the players from both the Blue Brigade and England in the 21st century. Several notable misses of the line-up were the legendary batters Sachin Tendulkar and former captain MS Dhoni. He also didn’t include James Anderson and Alastair Cook.

Pujara’s selection of these players has come during the participation in the segment called ‘The Draft’ by ESPNcricinfo. For the opening position, the 37-year-old picked the former players Alec Stewart of England and Rahul Dravid as he left out Gautam Gambhir, Murali Vijay, and Rohit Sharma.

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At number three, Pujara went with Joe Root, who is the fifth leading run-getter of the five-day format with 13259 runs, along with Virat Kohli at number four, who smacked 9230 runs in 210 innings at an average of 46.85 before taking his retirement from the red-ball format.

Cheteshwar Pujara selects India and England’s combined Test eleven from 21st century

The Saurashtra batter decided to pick VVS Laxman at number five, who is just behind Kohli in terms of most runs in the red-ball history with 8781 runs in 225 innings at an average of 45.97, having scored 17 centuries and 56 half-centuries. Ben Stokes is the biggest clutch player of late and has got his name at number six in the eleven. Meanwhile, Andrew Flintoff is also in the team for his all-rounder skills.

Ravindra Jadeja is one of the two spin all-rounders of the side, along with Ravichandran Ashwin. Both of them have displayed their ability with the bat in challenging conditions and have picked wickets regularly in Asian spinning conditions. On the other hand, Pujara went with both Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah as the two premier pacers.

The Bengal pacer has done well with Dukes ball in the United Kingdom, while even at the start of his career, Jasprit Bumrah has earned several wickets to get into the playing eleven of the combined side from the 21st century.

Cheteshwar Pujara’s India and England’s combined Test XI from 21st century

Alec Stewart, Rahul Dravid, Joe Root, Virat Kohli, VVS Laxman, Ben Stokes, Andrew Flintoff, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah.