India have been dominant in the few ODIs they’ve played heading into the Champions Trophy, but inconsistencies remain in the batting order…
Does India’s middle order wear an uncertain look heading into the Champions Trophy? The dominance against England at home in the lead up to the ICC tournament notwithstanding, there appears to be some confusion regarding key middle-order slots. At the core of the debate are the decisions to play KL Rahul ahead of Rishabh Pant as the lead wicketkeeper and sending Axar Patel out to bat ahead of KL Rahul at No. 5.
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Selection committee chief Ajit Agarkar, while announcing the Champions Trophy squad, had claimed Pant was the first-choice wicketkeeper. As it turned out, Pant is the only player in the squad who didn’t get a game in the three ODIs in the England series. Sources indicated that there had been heated debate in the selection meeting around retaining Shreyas Iyer in the team and over the second wicketkeeper’s slot.
Former India coach Ravi Shastri sparked off the debate when the camera panned on Pant in the dugout in the second ODI. Shastri, on air at the moment, emphatically announced that he was bewildered by the fact that a player of Pant’s calibre was being kept out of the playing XI.
Shastri himself would know a few things about going into a marquee tournament with an unsettled batting lineup. Devang Gandhi, a national selector during Shastri’s tenure as India head coach, said, “Gambhir must be given due credit for working with a team in transition. He has got India dominating in the ODI format, much like India were doing from 2016-2019. What the selectors and Gambhir need to be careful about is consistency in the middle order,” Gandhi told TOI.
The reference here is to India’s batting collapses in the 2017 Champions Trophy final against Pakistan and in the 2019 World Cup semifinal against New Zealand.
“The batting then was largely driven by the top three – Rohit, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli. What happened then was nobody else got time to settle down from No. 4 onwards. The rest of the batting wasn’t sure of the role they had to play.
“When the top order collapsed in those big matches, the rest of the batting looked clueless. Hopefully, it isn’t the case this time. If they have identified Axar as a No. 5 batter then they must look to give him a run at that number. Axar has done well but the management has to decide if he is going to be a long-term option who can rebuild and dominate an innings till the 2027 World Cup in South Africa,” Gandhi said.
The team management has backed Axar’s promotion up the order and explained the need to have a right-left batting combination in the middle overs. Former India wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta, who was on air with Shastri when the point was raised, highlighted that a left-handed Pant would always be a bigger threat in the middle order than Axar Patel. “If the argument is to have a left-handed batter in the middle, then Pant fits the bill perfectly. Why wait for a left-hander to come out at No. 5? Pant could bat at No. 4 followed by Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja,” Dasgupta said.
Dasgupta argued that Rahul batting at No. 6 serves little purpose, since he is not a natural power-hitter who can hit from the word go. “I understand the team wants to back Rahul since he has been consistent in the absence of Pant. But he did it at No. 5, where he could still build an innings. If that’s the case, then let Rahul bat at No. 4 and get Iyer at No. 6, because he has the game to finish the death overs strongly.
“Rahul batting at No. 6 is not likely to help his cause,” Dasgupta said.
Iyer himself set the cat amongst pigeons when he revealed that he wasn’t supposed to start in the XI in the first ODI. It was only due to Kohli’s knee niggle that a vacancy opened up in the middle order. Iyer cashed in on the opportunity, logging two emphatic half-centuries and an innings of 44 which was cut short by a run out.
“The idea to bench Iyer at the start of the series didn’t make any sense, since Iyer has been exceptional in the 2023 ODI World Cup and India have played very few ODIs after the World Cup,” Gandhi said.
However, at the end of the series, Gambhir insisted that Iyer was always a first-choice pick and that the team management just wanted to check out Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top of the order in the first ODI. Eventually, Jaiswal became the fall guy when the selectors decided to rope in an X-factor in Varun Chakravarthy in the bowling department, which seems overloaded with five spinners now.
If India can come up with a more settled plan for the middle overs, they might just be runway favourites in the Champions Trophy.
