Ahmedabad: The Indian team management faces a problem of plenty going into the five T20 Internationals against England. It is an assignment which marks the beginning of the side’s build-up to this year’s T20 World Cup at home. All the five T20Is will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium here. There are 19 players available for selection and with two in contention for each slot.
The XI for the five games, starting here Friday, will be an indication to how head coach Ravi Shastri, captain Virat Kohli and bowling coach Bharat Arun are looking at the next six to seven months for the shortest format.
Will they look for a settled combination to first clinch the series and then experiment? Or will they field absolute rookies in the squad looking at the bigger picture? For a team that’s so closely followed, results do matter. That’s why one can expect a settled first XI for the first three games since all matches are at the same venue on similar kind of tracks.
The roaring comeback of Rishabh Pant will lead to a lot of interesting developments at the top of the order. Pant’s inclusion means that KL Rahul is unlikely to don the big gloves.
Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma were a settled white ball opening pair. However, recently Rahul has emerged as a potent white ball specialist. Dhawan recently had a score of 150 odd in the Vijay Hazare Trophy for Delhi. However, when it comes to Rohit, there’s nothing to be discussed.
So where does the team management fit in Rahul, who has been a successful IPL opener? Will he be slotted in the middle-order as Dhawan’s game is not suited to batting lower down?
These are two pertinent questions and in the answer, will be a follow-up question. Skipper Kohli himself comes in at No. 3. The two game-changers like Pant and all-rounder Hardik Pandya are expected to play the big shots at Nos 5 and 6. Sp where , does it ideally leave Rahul?
The only place he can be slotted is No. 4 but Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav are also jostling for a place.
When it comes to a three-way battle between Rahul, Shreyas and Surya, the Karnataka man beats the two Mumbai boys hollow. It is because of his repertoire of strokes and ability to shift gears.
Similarly, in the pace department, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, once upon a time India’s best white ball exponent, is coming back after a long lay-off. He will be engaged in a two-way fight with Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur.
Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel are the three spinners expected to feature in the playing XI on the sluggish Motera tracks.
In another three-way fight, Thangarasu Natarajan, with his variation of yorkers, stands a better chance to start off compared to Navdeep Saini.
In all, there are too many good players and very little space to fit all of them. The situation will get complicated when Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah return. already resting or recuperating from injury. It will be a bigger selection headache for the management but one that they won’t mind.
