Gautam Gambhir seems to be a big fan of musical chairs. The only issue is that he doesn’t play it at home with friends and family, but with players on the cricket field. His version of musical chairs has elimination, but with replacements.
He’ll pluck one player from a position and either move him to another or kick him out. Washington Sundar is the prime example of this. In his last two Test matches, the all-rounder has batted at number three in one and eight in another. In his last two ODIs, he’s batted at seven and five.
Gambhir’s bizarre selections
Gambhir’s idea of consistency is inconsistency. It’s almost like he wants players to be on their toes at all times, hoping they’ll perform with an axe swinging over their heads. On the eve of the Ranchi ODI, the focus wasn’t just on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s return but on Gambhir’s selections and tactics as well.
And he didn’t disappoint. Although interim captain KL Rahul confirmed Rishabh Pant will play, he didn’t. You’d assume Tilak Varma would bat in the middle order as Shreyas Iyer’s replacement. Well, that’s your fault. You assumed the obvious would actually happen.
Gambhir picked Ruturaj Gaikwad for number four, backup opener to Yashasvi Jaiswal. Why? As mentioned above, it’s wrong to assume the obvious. But one can guess the right-left combination played a part. Pant and Tilak are southpaws, while Gaikwad, like Shreyas, bats right-handed, and that’s likely why he got in.
Why no Pant?
But why did Washington have to be promoted to five? KL Rahul, someone who averages 56.47 at the position, was forced to bat at six. This exact thing perplexed Gambhir’s former Delhi teammate Aakash Chopra as well. He questioned Pant’s exclusion from the team and the decision to play two inexperienced batters at four and five.
“And now Rishabh Pant—when will you play him? He is a pure middle-order batter, performs best at 4 or 5, and yet you don’t pick him even when there is space in the middle order. Instead, you send two players who have never batted at those positions,” Aakash said on his YouTube channel.
Another reshuffle loading?
So, what will happen in Raipur? Your guess is as good as anyone’s. Gaikwad should not have played ahead of Pant or Tilak, and neither should Washington have batted at five ahead of Rahul. Yet it happened. In theory, you should back both to do the same role in the India vs South Africa 2nd ODI.
Whether it will actually happen is another case. India played three pacers in Ranchi. That might change in Raipur. We could very well see either Nitish Kumar Reddy or one of Tilak and Pant come into the playing XI with Prasidh Krishna going out, considering he was the worst-performing pacer.
This could very well mean that one or both of Washington and Gaikwad might be reshuffled. It shouldn’t happen, but at this point, no one will be shocked if it does.
India ODI squad for South Africa series
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul (c & wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana
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