| Scores | Upcoming | Results |
Chennai: Yuvraj Singh's indifferent form may cost him a place in the Indian Test team for the Australia series. The southpaw, a favourite of skipper MS Dhoni, wasn't at his best during the tri-series in Sri Lanka and that hasn't gone down too well with the selectors.
Cheteshwar Pujara, on the other hand, has come up in leaps and bounds over the past few months, and the selection committee believes time is ripe for the Saurashtra right-hander to make the cut. In fact, he came close to making it to the Test squad for the Sri Lanka series in July-August.
The selectors, meeting on Monday to pick the team for the Australia series, will have all these things in mind. But the selectors aren't still decided whether to go in with a 15 or a 16-member team for the Test series at home.
Given the amount of cricket these days, they don't want to take a chance and look to keep a back-up for every slot. If that is the case, then, Pujara may come into the side as the 16th member in place of the out-of-form Yuvraj. "Pujara is pretty much in contention. Let's see how it goes in the meeting," a BCCI source indicated.
The absence of Dhoni from the meeting may just make things a little easier for the selectors. It's common knowledge that the skipper prefers Yuvi in the squad, but now that he will be in South Africa for the ongoing Champions Trophy, there won't be too many around to put in a word for the left-hander. There's no doubt about the top-seven, with Suresh Raina sealing his place in the Test squad with a century and a half-century against Sri Lanka.
Likely Squad: V Sehwag, G Gambhir, R Dravid, S Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni, S Raina, H Singh, Z Khan, I Sharma, Sreesanth/A Mithun, A Mishra, P Ojha, W Saha, M Vijay, C Pujara.
