Rana scored 35 runs but went wicketless in the second T20I.
Why is Harshit Rana not playing in AUS vs IND 3rd T20I? That’s a major question since India captain Suryakumar Yadav announced a plethora of changes in the playing XI at the toss.
Rana has been in the setup for a while, and the current team management has shown ample trust in his abilities, as visible in the initial two games of the series. They played him ahead of Arshdeep Singh because he is slightly better as a batter, even though his bowling has been wayward at times.
However, a defeat in the second T20I has surely impacted their original plan, and they have dropped him despite a solid performance with the bat in the last game. Rana scored 35 runs, but went wicketless and conceded 13.50 runs per over in the second T20I.
The most interesting part was his promotion to No.7 ahead of Shivam Dube. That suggested how seriously the management takes the LHB-RHB combination, and how highly they rate Harshit Rana as a batter.
Harshit Rana is excluded to accommodate Arshdeep Singh, who might be more successful in Hobart. There will be early movement since some breeze is flowing, and Arshdeep understands how to move the new ball and bring wickets upfront.
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Rana can hit the deck hard and bowl at a high pace, but his inconsistency and lack of control might have forced India to choose a bowler with better control. As it turned out, the move paid dividends, as Arshdeep took two wickets in the powerplay, dismissing Travis Head and Josh Inglis.
Harshit Rana will need to work more on his bowling to return to the XI now because these were ideal conditions for his type, and the management would have expected him to step up with the ball. Despite high attributes, he has consistently been among the most expensive bowlers in white-ball cricket for India and has bowled poor lengths from time to time.
Overall, he has five wickets at an average of 27.80 and conceded 10.69 runs per over in his T20I career. These numbers are surely not inspiring enough to back him ahead of someone like Arshdeep, India’s leading T20I wicket-taker.
Australia: Mitchell Marsh(c), Travis Head, Josh Inglis(w), Tim David, Mitchell Owen, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Short, Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis, Matthew Kuhnemann
India: Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tilak Varma, Jitesh Sharma(w), Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah
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