India assistant coach Abhishek Nayar on Thursday defended the exclusion of Shubman Gill from the Boxing Day Test, saying it was not only in the team's interest to make Rohit Sharma open the innings but also to strengthen the attack by including spin all-rounder Washington Sundar.

Gill, who missed the first Test due to a finger injury, scored 31 and 28 in the pink ball Test. He looked the most reliable of the Indian batsmen but was dismissed for zero in Brisbane.

With Rohit Sharma opening the innings and KL Rahul coming in at number three, Gill had to make way for the third specialist allrounder Washington.

After the day's play, Nair said, "Yes, Rohit will come up in the batting order and there is every possibility that he will open the innings. That was the plan. Unfortunately Gill had to be out the way things went. He had to be out."

The former Mumbai veteran said, "I think in such a situation a young player wants to make his mark on the big day. He understands that this is the need of the team and it is unfortunate. But I would not say that he has been dropped from the team. It is unfortunate that he could not make it to the team for this match. "

He explained in detail why it was appropriate to play Washington at the MCG compared to Gill. He said, "When a lot of decisions are taken and there is a process to take them, there is always dialogue and transparency. It is very clear that we felt after looking at the pitch that having Washi in the bowling attack would give us variety, especially in the end when the ball gets old."

Nair said, "After 50 overs, we felt this was an area we needed to improve. We felt Washi could give us strength along with Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja), especially the way Travis Head and Alex Carey were scoring runs in the lower order. So we felt having an off-spinner in the team would help us in this. "