Ever since making his ODI debut in 2016, KL Rahul has played at number five for more majority of his career in the 50-over format. The fact that he averages over 56 while batting at that position and has 9 fifties and 2 hundreds to his name is a testament of why he shouldn’t be demoted down the batting order. Yet, India head coach Gautam Gambhir thinks so otherwise. Call it tactics or decisions based on real-time situations in game, GG has used Rahul only once at number 5 since taking over as head coach in 2024, something that could be perhaps baffling.
Rahul at his best at number 5
In 31 innings that Rahul has played at number 5, he has amassed 1299 runs at an average of 56.47, having struck 97 fours and 36 sixes. In fact, he is at his best while batting at that position in comparison to opening or playing at number 4 by a huge margin. But ever since Gambhir has taken over as head coach, Rahul has batted just once at number 5.
| Position | Innings | Runs | HS | Average | 100s | 50s |
| 5th | 31 | 1299 | 112 | 56.47 | 2 | 9 |
| 6th | 8 | 194 | 42* | 48.50 | 0 | 0 |
In his very first series as coach, Gambhir slotted Rahul to bat at number 6 and 7 in the only two ODIs that he played (against Sri Lanka). He scored 31 and 0. In 2025, the Karnataka keeper-batter has played 8 ODIs to date (excluding the IND vs AUS 1st ODI). Out of these, he has batted just once at number 5 – against England in Ahmedabad where he scored 40 runs. For the rest of the six innings, he has batted at number 6 registering scores of 2, 10, 41*, 23, 42* and 34*.
While the batter has shown consistency while batting at number 6 as well, one question that comes to the fore is that are India mis utilizing Rahul’s potential in terms of batting at number 5? The fact that his average while batting at number 5 is better than his career average in ODIs is more than enough to justify why he needs to bat at that position.
However, it is also pertinent to point out that Gambhir’s call to play Rahul at 6 and Axar at 5 has worked well for India. In fact, that particular combination helped India clinch the Champions Trophy 2025 in March as well.
