We only had questions on Number 4. We knew Rohit will open with KL, Virat at 3, Raydu/Shankar/Dinesh for 4, Pant at 5, Jaddu at 6, Dhoni 7.
Tell me who will open? KL is coming back, so are they overconfident that KL Rohit will open no matter what.. who is number 3? When was the last time the entire team played together?
I think I’ve posted a lineup that they are aiming to achieve a few months ago and I doubt it has changed.
Rohit
Gill
Kohli
Shreyas
Rahul
Hardik
Jadeja
Kuldeep (originally had this marked down as whichever attacking spinner was in form)
Shami
Bumrah
Siraj
You don’t drop someone who has been opening for two years and averaging sixty whilst striking above hundred. Rahul last opened a year ago when he returned from a long injury layoff for the second string side against Zimbabwe (and it was when he was the captain too). Since then he's played three series in the middle order and had potential match winning efforts in all of them so I doubt he'll randomly be asked to open again especially if keeping. I'm not sure why you have doubts over Kohli at number three when he's batted there for pretty much the entirety of his career?
That top five last played together this year in January against Sri Lanka in the
third ODI. If you also want Hardik in there that lineup was played in the
first ODI and the
second ODI of the same series. On the bowlers side other than Bumrah the other three played in the same second ODI. Jadeja missed out in this series because he was injured and his fitness for the upcoming BGT was prioritized. Jadeja played together with all of them other than Shreyas in the Australian ODIs in March. Shreyas was injured at this point and since then we've had Rahul also be injured. Bumrah's obviously been out for a long, long time.
On the backup side SKY seems to be the preferred one to Shreyas' spot despite not having any significant performance in ODIs. Kishan seems like the backup opener and also backup middle order keeper to Rahul. Samson is definitely behind him in the order now. Axar's obviously the Jadeja backup but we've had both of them play together too which does indicate that if it is a spin heavy pitch they may play together in the WC. I don't mind that at all as I rate Axar's bowling, I'd give him the edge with the white ball compared to Jadeja. With Axar's batting position... it seems like they're seeing him as a floater plus hitter who can be sometimes promoted up the order to surprise the opposition. It hasn't worked yet given the disparity between his domestic and international stats but he does have the potential to be as good as Jadeja with the bat as he showed in his two fifties last year. The Bumrah backup has been the iffy part (as it should be for a world class pacer)... his natural replacement in Prasidh has also been out for close to a year now which has meant trialing inexperienced alternatives with potential like Sen and Umran who haven't been as good for obvious reasons. Chahal and Kuldeep are competing for the attacking spinner role which Kuldeep should have won by now. As for Chahar and Thakur... their batting utility seems more valued than their ability with the ball. One of them will be selected for the WC as the backup pacer and may even play games given how concerned we are with our lack of batting depth in the tail.
The rest of the other players don't seem to be anything more than squad cover. Gaikwad, Mukesh and Unadkat seem like selections made because they were already there for the tests and they're cheap fillers in ODIs. There's always been a method to the madness under Dravid, my biggest criticism of it has been the protection certain players seem to get where as others don't get the same luxury. The ones not given the latter have inevitably declined though like Samson, Shaw, Arshdeep etc so maybe they were right to not do so.
You're also heavily oversimplifying things before the 2019 WC if not being wrong about some of them. There was a twitter thread on it that showed how horrid the planning for it was too. From what I remember, our opening pair was Dhawan and Rohit while Rahul was supposed to be the backup. Rayudu was the number four for a year until he was justifiably dropped. DK and Pant were competing for a spot and it seemed like Pant had won that until he messed up a stumping because our crowd booed him believing he was no Dhoni and then it suddenly went to DK because experience mattered. Remember the part where Rahul was supposed to be the backup opener? Well as it turns out he can rotate strike nicely and bat at four so hey he's now our number four after a warmup hundred. This obviously lasted for only one game because Dhawan got injured. So it turned into Shankar at four like they decided at the last moment, Hardik promoted to five whenever thirty-five overs were up and Jadhav if not followed by Dhoni. Jadeja never batted at six, he wasn't even supposed to be in the WC plans initially as per Kohli when he got enamored with KulCha. It was only when the latter started faltering and Hardik started getting injured that he turned to Jadeja as the backup spinner plus all-rounder because Shankar couldn't be relied on for ten overs. In fact, Jadeja only played
two games in that World Cup and batted at eight in both of them... and that came about because KulCha got smashed by England and our batting depth was exposed. He was the backup who got promoted at the last moment... he was never in the opening act or main play.
