CHENNAI: "That's the way cricket is meant to be played. I know a lot of people talk about it, but that's the way we've got to play the game and that's the way cricket should be played." That is what India head coach Gautam Gambhir had to say when asked about the team management's fixation on having a left-right combination in the middle at any point in time.
India had just beaten England 3-0 in the ODI series and were on a high, but there were enough questions to be asked about some of the decisions made by Gambhir and his staff. One among them, and perhaps the most important one was his push to have a left-right combination in the middle.
Among other things, it has also led to a discussion on who should don the gloves for India. KL Rahul or Rishabh Pant? Captain Rohit Sharma had made it clear that Rahul is the first-choice keeper considering the performance he has shown every time he got the chance, especially during Pant's long injury layoff. Barring the final where he went into a shell, Rahul had a stellar World Cup and is among the top middle-order keeper-batters in the world. Since the 2019 ODI WC, Rahul has 1419 runs in 36 innings at 52.55 average and 92.56 strike rate. He is third on the list of middle-order keeper-batters in this period. He, followed by Shai Hope, are the only two to average over 50 with minimum of 1000 runs in this phase.
It comes as no surprise that Rohit wants to start with Rahul as first-choice keeper. However, playing Rahul in combination with the approach of having a leftie in the middle means that he is batting at No 6 or lower. The top four is set in stone with Rohit, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer. India have been promoting Axar Patel, who to his credit has delivered whenever he came up, but this means Rahul perhaps bats one position too low. In the four innings he has batted at No 6, Rahul scored 43 runs at 10.75. The sample size might not be much but it underlines a possible issue.
Meanwhile, Pant has had a bit of on and off ODI career as well. Despite being around for seven years, he has played only 31 games batting in only 27. Since 2019 WC, he has batted only 18 times in 21 matches while averaging 37.88 at 110.08 SR. The numbers might not say much, but one could argue that just when it seemed like Pant was making an impact in the format, he had an unfortunate layoff and hasn't been able to comeback since.
Playing him would automatically free up the middle-0rder push for Axar. In fact, he can even be moved up if needed based on situation, especially against spinners. Pant strikes at 107.81 against spin while averaging 36.77. In contrast, Rahul averages 54 with a SR of 89.08 against spin. That being said, as things stand, Rahul still seems to be the first choice and it all might come down to how the pitches behave in Dubai. Because, if Rahul is not able to keep the momentum going India have a problem. And come the crunch game, both captain and the coach would want to have the best possible option for the particular opponents and conditions on the given day.