The return of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer is a welcome boost, but India’s starting lineup lacks balance ahead of the World Cup 2023

Return of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer is a welcome boost

Asia Cup 2023: The selection puzzle is beginning to take shape, but team management is still concerned about the depth of the batting lineup, the lack of a left-handed middle order player, and the bowling lineup.

After a long period of time, India is finally starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together in the weeks leading up to the home World Cup.

Ten days before the Asia Cup, India now has the services of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer, two players who will stroll into the XI at the World Cup starting in October. This comes after bringing back Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna into the national setup for the tour of Ireland. With Tilak Varma’s selection being the lone exception, the selectors have largely stayed with the names who have been heavily involved in the ODI setup over the last 24 months.

The majority of the boxes that India had been expecting to check were checked when Ajit Agarkar, the chairman of the senior selection panel, read out the names in New Delhi. The 17-member squad, which will be captained by Rohit Sharma with Hardik Pandya serving as his deputy, is a little unbalanced when it comes to the XI, particularly in terms of batting depth, but it instills much-needed optimism that has been lacking over the past few months.

Rahul’s name is marked with an asterisk, though. The 31-year-old, who is fully recovered from a thigh injury he suffered during the IPL, has experienced a minor setback in his attempt to make a comeback as he is currently nursing a groin ache and is not expected to be fully healthy until either India’s second group stage match against Nepal or the Super Four stages of the Asia Cup. Iyer, who last played in the fourth Test against Australia in March, has no such worries.

An adaptable middle order

India had the luxury of selecting a 17-member team for the Asia Cup, thus they used the competition to reduce their final selection to 15. After experimenting with a variety of middle-order candidates over the past few months, Rohit can now finally have a stable batting lineup with the return of Rahul and Shreyas. The availability of the pair allows India to keep their top three players, Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, and Virat Kohli, unaffected while also knowing the make-up of their top six. India’s middle order will be much more flexible in terms of promotion and demotion depending on the circumstances and bowlers in use with Shreyas, Rahul, all-rounders Hardik Pandya, and Ravindra Jadeja to follow.

Even if Shreyas appears to be the No. 4 pick, India will use its resources much more daringly after Kohli. “The top three are important, and then four, five, six, and seven can finish the job from there. The entire batting lineup is under question. All seven-eight numbers are available to everybody, although it goes without saying that you want to achieve the best performance possible from players in particular positions. Flexibility is necessary, but that doesn’t mean we should send Hardik Pandya as the opener or even at number 7. Kohli has batted at position three for the past four to five years. Players at numbers 4, 5, and the new guys need to be adaptable. All of us have done that, even in my profession. The flexibility I’m referring about is that, stated Rohit.

Outside of these, India has Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, and Tilak Varma. The top six appear to be cemented. Suryakumar’s position was the subject of some dispute, but the selectors have chosen to give him another chance to see if he can succeed at No. 6 or 7. Varma’s inclusion, who hasn’t played in the format before, is unexpected, but India is also conscious that they don’t have a left-handed batsman in the middle order.

India’s team management believes a left-hander is necessary to provide variation because the majority of opponents have wrist spinners in their starting lineup. A left-hander who can free the restraints is viewed as a valuable asset because Shreyas and Rahul have previously demonstrated signs of being pinned down when spinners, who take the ball away from them, are bowling in tandem.

Axar Patel, a batter who is considered to be better against spinners and can even play aggressive cameos, is tempting for India to deploy, but Ravindra Jadeja’s presence makes it unlikely that either of them would find a spot in the starting XI. While Rohit did state that India couldn’t go past Axar due to his success over the previous 12 months, it is known that there will be room for a change in the World Cup squad if they are unable to break the combo deadlock.

bite during the assault

Some people may find it odd that Hardik Pandya has five seam bowling options, especially given the World Cup and Asia Cup pitch conditions. However, according to The Indian Express, just four of the five — Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, Bumrah, and Prasidh — will qualify for the World Cup. Given the nature of their injuries and the fact that Bumrah and Krishna are making their long-awaited comebacks, it is expected that India would have a workload system in place to keep their pacers fresh for the World Cup.

The pace-bowling unit will be difficult for the selectors to eliminate, in contrast to the batting unit. The team’s depth in the batting order would be lost if Thakur were to be dropped, something skipper Rohit is unwilling to give up. Prasidh is regarded as a trustworthy choice to play in the middle innings, and he will also enable Rohit to reserve Bumrah for the closing stages. Siraj and Shami are both renowned for their ability to take wickets with the new ball, but there is a good chance that only one of them will advance to the World Cup.

Axar vs. Jadeja

The spin department is completed by Kuldeep Yadav and the two all-rounders Jadeja and Axar. It might come down to Jadeja vs. Axar in the end because Kuldeep is a lock for the starting XI. If that is the case, India would have still another problem to address because Thakur won’t be one of their seam-bowling options, leaving them with a long tail. It is understood that having depth in the batting order was a heated topic during the Monday selection meeting. The team management even used the recent T20Is against the West Indies to emphasize the point. R Ashwin and Washington Sundar’s names are believed to have been thrown into the mix as a result, but because the team needed to go with five pacers to Sri Lanka, neither off-spinner made the cut. The management of the Indian squad believes that having batting depth up to No. 9 will enable the middle order to take more risks, especially if they want to be more flexible. If not, India will be forced to bat according to a set blueprint, which will make them simple to crack.