Before the first Test against the West Indies, India skipper Rohit Sharma confirmed a handful of batting positions that had been questioned. Yashasvi Jaiswal is expected to open, and Shubman Gill will drop a rank to No. 3 after Cheteshwar Pujara was dropped.
Rohit further stated that the switch was made after Gill requested the middle order place from coach Rahul Dravid.
“In terms of batting positions, Gill will bat third.” He has stated that he spoke with Rahul Dravid and stated that he has spent his entire career at Nos. 3 and 4, and that he can perform better for the team at No. 3. And it gets better for us since we have a left-right opening combination. So that’s what we’ll do, and perhaps it will work in the long run.
“We’ve wanted a left-hander for a long time, and now we’ve got one, so let’s hope he performs well for the team and can really make his spot his own,” Rohit said at the pre-match press conference in Dominica.
The venue, which has traditionally favored spinners, has also aided India in determining the bowling combination, with R Ashwin poised to return after missing out on the World Test Championship final.
“Based on the pitch, it appears that we will use two spinners and three seamers.” Because, as we’ve seen, the spinners took a lot of wickets in the last Test played here in 2017. “We’ve practiced here as well, and with the bounce, we feel we have to go with the 3-2 combination,” Rohit explained.
“All these guys were on the radar and the selectors were watching them closely, I’m glad they could be rewarded,” he said of the series’ young players.
“A couple of guys missed out as well, but you can only get 15-16 players, so everyone’s time will come.” Looking ahead, Indian cricket urgently needed a lefthander, and we found one in Jaiswal. He and Ruturaj both appear to be highly promising. Gill has clearly been playing well for the past year, and we hope he can keep it up. Ruturaj has a lot of promise in red-ball cricket, and he’s already proven it in T20 cricket. It’s time for him to shine…and I’m sure he’s looking forward to more and more runs for the Indians. It’s always excellent for Indian cricket when players like this arrive.”
The skipper also addressed the pace attack’s lack of experience, stating that workload management is crucial given the quantity of cricket played by Indian players.
“With the amount of cricket we play, this will be a challenge for Indian cricket.” “We need to manage the players, rotate them, give them a break, and make sure they’re fresh when they come back,” Rohit explained.
“We also need to keep an eye on what’s coming up in the future; there’s a World Cup coming up, and we need to keep everyone fresh for it.” This is also something on our minds. We don’t have the luxury of concentrating on a single series. We must keep an eye on the upcoming series and who is more important to us for the series. We need to rotate our players, and the good news is that we can offer new players opportunities and build bench strength. “We’ll see how they handle the pressure of international cricket and how they cope,” he remarked.
“Jaydev [Unadkat] is not a newcomer; he’s been playing for 10-12 years and made his debut back then.” Mukesh Kumar has had some solid performances for his state, zonal, and India A teams. “We’ll see what combinations we can come up with,” Rohit added.
