You wanna join Kohli school of Captaincy?
I see no point to continue with Dhawan just because he averages around 70 but strikes at under 90.
Prithvi Shaw must play in absence of Rohit while Ruturaj is second in line. KLR must open at all costs with Rohit.
A batting order consisting of these will win you games
Rohit
KLR
Virat Kohli
Shreyas Iyer
Rishabh Pant
Hardik (if he bowls) / Venky Iyer
Ravindra Jadeja
Not to nitpick but you do know that Dhawan has been striking above 90 since 2016 right? And your suggested replacement in Rahul as the opener has a strike-rate of below 90 as an opener.
To delve deeper into this, Rahul has only struck at a run a ball twice as an opener in his entire ODI career. Both of those instances were for 5 and 11 runs respectively nearly five years ago. I’m not even kidding, even during his supposed ‘purple patch’ Rahul has always scored close to a run a ball as the opener but never at or above it. This is including his centuries and fifties and this isn’t just an isolated convenient case of him scoring at or above par in low scoring thrillers. These performances have also come when India have scored 300+. Now I have no love lost for Dhawan but out of his seventeen centuries, only five have been below run a ball.
So does this mean Rahul doesn’t merit his place in the playing XI? On the contrary, there is a role out there that Rahul has performed superbly in and that has been at number five. Over the last three years for middle-order players striking at more than hundred, Rahul has the highest average. This list includes blokes like Buttler, Pooran and Maxwell. The best in the business. And Rahul has been better than them. And Rahul is far from an anomaly in this. Jos Buttler is similarly very good in the middler order in an ODI and equally devastating as a T20 opener. One theory is that these blokes simply function better when they walk in around the 30 over mark and approach the ODI game as a T20.
So why does India not play it’s very own desi Buttler, replete with gloves and ’leadership quality’ in the middle order? Why saddle him at the top of the order? He plays very similar to Rohit Sharma and we cannot afford two of the same type of players in a modern ODI as openers. The only benefit I see is that he can make the big individual scores and centuries as an opener far more than in the middle order. Does that really serve India better though? His fifty striking at well above hundred is of far more use and importance to the Indian side in getting those scores in excess of 300 and in the four times he has done that, India have scored comfortably above 300.
The counter argument to this is that India surprisingly does have a capable set of players for the middle order already and you wouldn’t be wrong. Jadeja, Pant and Pandya all strike above a run a ball and have averaged more than 35 in the last three years in the middle order. Out of the four options, Pant does have the best strike-rate (a humongous 137 bettered only by… Mark Adair?).
This does illustrate what the Indian management has been trying to do in the recent past in ODIs in the dying days of Shastri-Kohli duo. Have the traditional top three bat long enough with their 90+ SR so that the number four actually comes in at a number five situation and then voila, you have Pant and Rahul both ready to contribute with their T20-lite batting performances. This also allows India to play Pandya and Jadeja without any worry in the middle order, providing two all-rounders. Of course, the issue is that Pant when he walks in as a traditional number four does not seem to do as well as a Shreyas Iyer can do. The evidence for Rahul is a lot more sparse owing to lack of actual experience at four but I suspect he wouldn’t like facing quality middle overs spin right as he walks in to bat which is what a number four traditionally does.
I wonder if the previous management realised how good this XI could potentially have been which is why we saw an awful lot of Pant at four (in addition to Kohli’s love of left-right batting duo). Imagine a top three that can consistently give you 50+ scores at near a run a ball followed by two of the very best middle-order aggressors and two more finishers who are nearly as good too. You would have scores of 350+ consistently and couple that with the previous Indian ODI bowling line-up and that would have been a champion side. It is a shame that this never came to fruition though as we had all the ingredients for this back in 2019 but shoddy planning prevented it.
To come back to the present day, I do agree with your general sentiment of Dhawan’s consistent fifties at less than a run a ball being very good but not quite cutting it for this current side. What this Indian side IMO needs at the moment as an opener is a pure dasher. Someone like a Gilly, Sehwag or Sanath from the previous era or a Jason Roy from this one. We already have two blokes in Kohli and Rohit who like building an innings and teeing off (although both have declined in the latter aspect). Someone who can provide a quick start is an ideal foil to this duo, The two best options I can think of are Mayank Agarwal (for the more experienced hand) and Prithvi Shaw (for the inexperienced but boundless potential).
If it were up to me, I would get Shaw in and give him a long rope with some batting paradises in a couple of home series to see how he plays under the international spotlight and pressure. I would also get SKY and Shreyas to work on their part-time bowling a lot more often like Markram with the promise of more playing time because let’s face it, Pandya bowling at the moment looks like a distant dream. Jadeja in at seven could easily bowl 7 overs minimum and if we could get at most five overs from our part-timer, it would be ideal. I would keep Gaikwad in reserve with the intention of him replacing Sharma long-term as the more patient opener.
And because every post must end with a fanciful playing XI that is every fan’s dream, here is mine for the current moment (at least until Pandya gets back to bowling regularly).
Shaw
Rohit
Kohli
Shreyas/Pant
Rahul
Pant/SKY
Jadeja
Whew, that came out longer than I expected. Been a while since I made a post this big.
