Fringe players looking to use A tour as springboard

Since he lost his off stump to a Mitchell Johnson ripper at the MCG on December 30 last year, Cheteshwar Pujara hasn't played a minute of international cricket. India left him out of the fourth Test on their tour of Australia, and, having decided to play five bowlers, found no place for him in their one Test in Bangladesh. Having slipped out of public consciousness somewhat, without an ODI spot or an IPL team to lend him visibility, Pujara will want to storm right back into it.

The two four-day games against Australia A will give him a chance to do that, and to show to what extent he has regained his touch. His recent returns in domestic first-class cricket and in the County Championship - two hundreds in eight matches, and an average of 37.77 - were far from spectacular by his standards.

By choosing both Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav in the Fatullah Test against Bangladesh, Virat Kohli made a clear statement that he wanted a Test attack containing a generous smear of raw pace. During the same tour, MS Dhoni, India's ODI captain, made an unsolicited remark after an erratic spell from Umesh that India would need to decide "if we want quick bowlers or if we want good bowlers even if they are not quick".

Fast versus good isn't a zero-sum equation: the debate only exists because Umesh and Aaron have both shown tantalising glimpses that they can be both while failing to maintain that level over entire sessions, let alone matches or series. The series against Australia A could be the first step for one or both of them to show they can become complete fast bowlers.

Ravindra Jadeja's bowling decline post his return from shoulder surgery has led India's selectors to take another look at a few older faces. Harbhajan Singh found a place in the Test squad in Bangladesh and the ODI squad in Zimbabwe, while Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha feature in the India A roster. For Mishra, who has looked impressive in the IPL and in his limited opportunities for India's ODI and T20 sides over the last year and a half, this is a long-awaited chance in the longer format.

Ojha, meanwhile, is looking to bring his career back on track after a troubled 2014-15 season mostly spent remodelling his action. He recently moved from Hyderabad to Bengal in order to play in the top tier of the Ranji Trophy and bowl against the best teams in the country. Now he has a chance to bowl against some of Australia's best talent.

With Ojha and Mishra in the squad, it remains to be seen if Shreyas Gopal will get a chance in either of the two four-day games. He is an intriguing prospect, though: in two seasons of first-class cricket, he has picked up 67 wickets at a rate of close to one every six overs. It doesn't entirely reflect his curious role within a seam-heavy Karnataka attack - a legspinning allrounder who doesn't bowl too many long spells, but gives the ball a rip and takes wickets whenever he comes on. He's still raw, and there are signs that his batting might prove his stronger suit in the longer term, but he has potential and will need to be watched closely.

There's no good time to contract dengue, but KL Rahul's tryst with the Aedes Aegypti mosquito came at a particularly inopportune moment. Having scored a maiden hundred in his last Test against Australia, he was forced to sit out of the Fatullah Test against Bangladesh. Shikhar Dhawan, the opener whose spot he had taken, came back into the team and scored a breezy 173. It wasn't necessarily a square zero moment for Rahul - Test centuries in Australia carry plenty of weight, after all - but it was a reminder that the opening slot will be hotly contested over the coming months, with most of India's Test cricket set to take place in the subcontinent.

Until Sanju Samson was flown in as a late replacement, the ODI squad to Zimbabwe was noticeably short on fresh faces, particularly in the batting department. For a side renowned for churning out a steady stream of young, international-class batting talent, it reflected either an unusually conservative mindset among the selectors or a lack of options in the domestic game. Karun Nair and Shreyas Iyer, possibly the two most impressive young middle-order batsmen to emerge over the last couple of domestic seasons, will want to prove the latter case isn't true.