It’s not quite often that the selection committee gets a pat from the team management after a well-fought victory but India’s head coach Rahul Dravid felt Ajit Agarkar and his team deserved the credit for “pushing and challenging” the team to try new options.

At various points in the grueling five-Test series against England, India missed Mohammed Shami, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Siraj, but ended with a triumphant 4-1 scoreline after losing the first Test. In the course, India had handed debuts to as many as five players – their joint-equal highest after their very first series – which Dravid feels has been possible only due to the hard work of the selection committee.

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“I’d just like to give a big shoutout to Ajit (Agarkar, chairman of selectors) and his team as well. A lot of the youngsters that come in, honestly, as a coach and as a captain, we don’t actually get to see them because we don’t see as much domestic cricket as Ajit and his team of selectors do. And they’ve pushed us and they’ve challenged us to pick some of these young players and they’ve picked the right ones and they’ve come out here and performed. So sometimes it’s not easy being a selector because you always get the criticism but a big credit and a big pat on the back to Ajit and his team as well,” Dravid said.

The biggest positives from the series could be the emergence of young guns like Yashasvi Jaiswal, scoring in excess of 700 runs, Sarfaraz Khan bludgeoning his way to the side with half centuries, and Dhruv Jurel – the young Uttar Pradesh stumper, who was picked with an experience of just 15 first-class matches.

In the absence of Rishabh Pant, the wicketkeeper had become a tricky spot for India especially with Ishan Kishan practically making himself unavailable for international cricket, and KS Bharat failing to cash on to the opportunities.

Jurel showed his class and temperament in just his second Test appearance in Ranchi when he prevented India from falling behind by a huge margin, a performance that bagged him the Player-of-the-Match award. Among the bowlers, left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav became the fastest Indian and the second-fastest spinner overall to 50 Test wickets. Rohit was full of praise for them.

“It was a long conversation (with Kuldeep, when he was down and out). It’s not maybe once or twice. It was over a period of time that we had conversations with him. Certainly, has got a lot of potential. We know that he can be a match-winner on his day. We saw in the first innings where chips were down a little bit. He came and bowled pretty well,” the skipper termed.

“He’s got something about him, which we all need to be happy about. After his injury – he had a knee injury a couple of years back – he has worked hard at NCA, worked with his coaches, and is putting a lot of body into the ball, which is good to see. The most pleasing was his batting through the series.”

Rohit had words of praise for his young opening partner Jaiswal, saying, “I can talk about him now. Guys have got a long way to go. Started off really well. This is amazing to be in this position for him personally. We saw through the series he wants to take on the bowlers and that is something that we want to encourage. When the guy’s got talent like that, who can play the shots like that, puts bowlers under pressure from the word go, that’s something that we want to encourage and something we want to take forward.”

“Obviously there will be a lot of challenges for him moving forward, but I’m pretty sure he is a tough guy. He has come a long way to where he is right now. So obviously he will understand what he needs to do individually and then what the team expects from him as well,” added the Mumbai right-hander.