4 contenders. 2 Vacancies. A selector’s nightmare. Who will lead the Indian batting lineup from the front in the future? Healthy competition or favouritism over talent? All such questions will be looming over the Indian dressing room with each passing day. What seemed an easy question 6 months ago, has now become the perfect headache for the new Indian Head Coach to navigate through. While VVS Laxman is only just the interim head coach, his job is to provide opportunities to let them perform at the highest level. But it will be now up to Gautam Gambhir, the newly appointed head coach to decide who gets the opening slots in T20I’s long term.
Six months ago, it was almost certain that the pair that opened for India today against Zimbabwe, Shubhman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal will be India’s openers once the Rohit-Kohli era draws to an end. But now that it has, and with the IPL in between, it’s not 2 but 4 real contenders for the opening spots. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Abhishek Sharma lit up the IPL for their respective teams and got the call-up for the National side for the Zimbabwe series. It is almost certain though, that moving forward one of 4 will have to be dropped while the other will have to be content with a substitute role as the remaining two carry forward the legacy of their predecessors. Today the Harare Sports Club, 3 out of the 4 scored 30+ runs, to give India the best start possible and pose a high total which Zimbabwe in the end couldn’t even come close to. Yashasvi Jaiswal- 36 off 27, Shubman Gill- 66 off 49, Ruturaj Gaikwad- 49 off 28. While the odd man out, Abhishek Sharma scored just 10 during his short stay at the crease. But this in no way lowers his stake in the opening position. Just 3 days before on Sunday, he was on fire as he flew to his 100 in minimal time.
So what will be the outcome of this “battle of seeing who is the most worthy”? In my opinion, Abhishek Sharma should be a shoo-in for the opening spot. The way he has galvanised his batting makes him the ideal T20 batsman. On top of that, he is the only one out of the 4 who is handy with the ball in hand, a left-arm off-spinner, something the pitches on the Indian Subcontinent value a lot. The other opening spot is honestly a toin coss between Jaiswal and Gill for me, with Gill having a slight edge. That’s because of 2 reasons, if Abhishek Sharma opens, having a right-hander alongside him would be a plus. Especially with the strong left-handed middle order India now has in T20I’s, consisting of Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, and Rinku Singh(who will surely play that finisher role for India in the coming years). Two, Gill seems to be the chosen one by BCCI for the future captaincy role and that gives him a better chance of being in the first team than out of it.
So what about Ruturaj Gaikwad? His batting style is more of an “anchor role” than that of the aggressor. In that sense, he is the most similar to Virat Kohli. In T20I’s for India, that role should be reserved for the Indian no.3. But with the way India played the World Cup things have changed. And Virat Kohli the original no.3 struggled to cope with that slight change. So who’s to say Gaikwad can cope with it? On top of that, with his performances for India in the WC, Rishabh Pant has made the no. 3 role for himself, and with SKY coming in at 4, there’s no real place where he can bat except at the top which again isn’t possible in my opinion thanks to the other 3 contenders. Will Gill-Abhishek own the top order in the coming years? Only time will tell.
