There’s no place in the top five, and it’s not wise to bat too many batters out of position.
KL Rahul is an enigmatic player. Just before the Border Gavaskar Trophy, he was dropped from the New Zealand series due to bad form. Later, his scores read 4 & 10 in the unofficial Test against Australia A just before the main event.
To exacerbate his case, the team management asked to open him out of nowhere against a relentless Aussie attack on a spicy Perth deck. It was the hardest phase to bat on the first day, visible by how the ball was seaming around on a green top. With all the pressure and no runs behind his back, Rahul came in a difficult position again.
And he did what he was always capable of doing: acing the toughest conditions and looking more comfortable on the first day. He scored only 26, before he was at the butt end of an umpiring error, but looked more comfortable than most batters despite facing the new ball. Later in the second innings, he compiled another prudent 77 to stamp his authority further.
However, with Rohit Sharma returning, India might have to shuffle his batting position. Shubman Gill also batted in the nets and will return to the fold in the next game. That means India must drop Devdutt Padikkal, slotted at No.3, to accommodate Gill.
Padikkal’s range of shots looked limited against pacers and lacked options to score runs. While he handles spin well, pacers will pose a big challenge with the pink ball. Hence, he must make way for Gill in the next game.
The main question, however, is where they will slot KL Rahul now. His returns in the previous game means that the team has to play him in the next encounter. But as his career has panned out, Rahul will again find himself playing a new role since there’s no place in the top three. That will leave only one spot – No.6, acquired by Dhruv Jurel in the last game.
Now Jurel hasn’t done anything wrong to get dropped. He faced some of the toughest conditions in both innings in the first Test and couldn’t do much. Still, he might face the axe and sit out in the next game.
At No.6, Rahul has 234 runs at an average of 29.25 in nine Test innings. However, he has played two vital knocks in this position, one of which was a century for the ages against South Africa in Centurion. He also scored a quickfire 68 against Bangladesh in Kanpur at No.6.
Rahul has worked on his game to become a middle-order batter in the longest format. If he were to play in a full-strength XI, he would have batted in the middle order anyway. It was his new position, and he was always competing with Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel, not Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill.
If the team plays Rahul in the top three, Gill must change his batting position. He is naturally a top-order batter and never batted outside the top three. Hence, adjusting to a newer position in such arduous conditions will be relatively tougher, unlike Rahul who has previous experience playing in the middle and lower middle order.
Gill is just finding his feet at No.3 and slowly settling into that role. This year, he has scored 806 runs at an average of 47.41, including three fifties and as many centuries, in 19 innings batting one down. So, disrupting his set number means changing too many batting positions unnecessarily.
Also Read: The Making of Varun Chakravarthy 2.0: What’s Behind His Success?
There’s no place in the top five, and it’s not wise to bat too many batters out of position. Instead, KL Rahul should simply take the No.6 spot since he has previously played at various positions.
If Gill doesn’t recover, there should be a straight swap with Devdutt Padikkal at No.3. Rohit will take the opening slot, while Rahul will shift to No.3. But that should happen only if Gill is not fit to play.
If everyone is fit and available, the lineup should be like this:
Rohit, Jaiswal, Gill, Virat, Pant, Rahul, and Sundar.
In this XI, almost all batters play at their preferred positions and there is little better than that with the team 1-0 ahead in the crunch series.
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