India captain Rohit Sharma and chief selector Ajit Agarkar announced a 17-member India squad on Monday, 21 August. The squad saw the return of injured batters KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer in the side, after several months of staying away from international cricket.
India have been under the scanner for their batting performances after the Indian Premier League 2023. Most recently in the West Indies tour, India batters had an inconsistent run in the white-ball format where questions were raised about the positions of the batter.
With the head coach Rahul Dravid stating that India will experiment with the batting order throughout the series, the interest peaked when Axar Patel walked out to bat at No. 4 or Suryakumar Yadav was slotted in the finisher’s role.
In the Asia Cup squad announcement press conference, Rohit Sharma was asked about the same and said that India were preparing batters to be flexible. Sharma argued that India batters had to be ready for a challenge in case things went wrong in the continental tournament ahead of the all important ODI World Cup 2023.
India have added a lot of variety in their batting line-up. Apart from the expected choices, India have added aggressive top-order batter Ishan Kishan, who will be in competition for the wicket-keeper’s spot alongside KL Rahul. India have shown faith in Tilak Varma after his tremendous debut in the West Indies T20Is earlier in August, while they have handed a long rope to Suryakumar Yadav for his tremendous ceiling in white ball cricket despite inconsistent performances.
“One thing I want in this team is to make sure everyone is okay to bat anywhere,” Rohit said at a press conference.
“That’s one thing we need to keep in mind. You need flexibility, guys who can step up at any position. No one should say, ‘I’m good at this position or I’m good at that position’. You want guys to be able to bat anywhere, that’s the message conveyed to every individual. Not now, but over the last three-four years,” Sharma said.
However, the captain and opening batter clarified that the changes were not going to be outrageous and senior players are likely to bat at their fixed positions.
“When I said flexibility is important, it’s not like I’m implying send the opener at No. 7 or open the batting with Hardik Pandya,” Rohit said.
“In the last four-five years if you look, opener has opened, No. 3 has batted at three, KL has batted five, Hardik six, Jadeja seven. Four and five, sometimes if they move up and down, there’s no problem. That much flexibility is important. Our position too when we came in, we batted up and down, I’m talking of that flexibility. It’s not like opener bat at eight and eight opens, we don’t do such mad things. Little bit of flexibility up and down is needed in a team,” he further added.
Previous Failures
Rohit’s admission, and later the clarification, possibly mean that India are not going to alter their top three, if not their top four. The move has often been criticised in ICC tournaments, where India have been stuck at the top and failed to recover later on in the game, most notably in the ICC T20 World Cups in 2021 and 2022.
All among Sharma, Kohli and KL Rahul were in the firing line after those tournaments, but at the moment it seems like that India are going to trust their top three (Rohit, Shubman and Kohli) to do the bulk of their weightlifting in the much longer 50-over format.
India middle-order batter Suryakumar Yadav gave a hint of the change in process earlier in the West Indies series when he said that he did not have fixed position to bat in the ODI format. Yadav explained that he had been asked to come out with 15-18 overs remaining and after taking a few balls under his belt start exploiting the field according to his own strengths.
What India are doing right now is nothing new. England have trusted their batters in the world tournaments and the move has paid dividends in the 2019 and 2022 World Cup. For India however, the pressure will be immense as they fight for the Asia Cup crown where they were battered in 2022 and then the World Cup which is being held exclusively in India for the very first time.
India’s Asia Cup 2023 Squad
Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya (VC), Ravindra Jadeja, Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Md. Shami, Md. Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna.
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