At least 5 of India’s immediate starters in T20Is aren’t playing yet; Ruturaj Gaikwad fails to find a spot in India’s squad for the Bangladesh T20I series. Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, India’s designated openers, are being rested to manage their workloads, and based on performance, Gaikwad should have come in for one of them, but he’s nowhere to be found.
Ruturaj Gaikwad’s international success
What stands out about Gaikwad is that while he’s done well for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL, his record for Team India is much better. Compared to his overall T20 and IPL record, Gaikwad outdoes himself when donning the Men in Blue jersey. Rarely do you see players performing better in international cricket compared to domestic, but he’s done just that.
His strike rate (143.53) takes a massive uptick, and his average (39.56) doesn’t drop either. As an opener, he’s bankable with the amount of runs he scores, and these come at a rate that doesn’t put the team behind. He was Team India’s best batter in the last series he played against Zimbabwe, despite Gill and Jaiswal scoring more runs.
In the series prior to that (in November last against Australia), he was the highest run-getter, which included an unbeaten 123, which is the second-highest individual score in T20Is by an Indian. The question then is, why isn’t he part of India’s squad vs Bangladesh?
Gambhir’s vision behind Gaidwad’s exclusion?
The simple answer is team composition. Since Gautam Gambhir took over as Team India’s head coach, we’ve seen him go all-rounder heavy. He gave the ball to Riyan Parag, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh and Suryakumar Yadav during the Sri Lanka T20I series.
Counting Parag, there are 5 all-rounders in India’s squad for Bangladesh T20Is. There are five genuine bowlers as well. This leaves just 5 spots. Out of these, two are wicketkeepers. Of the remaining three, one is Captain Surya, and the other two can (Abhishek and Rinku) roll their arms over as well. This means that if Gaikwad was indeed selected, he would be the only one who didn’t have any ‘other’ skills.
Gambhir clearly wants players who can offer more to the team in more than one facet of the game, especially in white-ball cricket. This seems on brand to what he did in Sri Lanka. Mind you, Team India won that series 3-0. You can’t question him leaving out Gaikwad based on his plans, but you surely feel for the CSK captain.
India T20I squad for Bangladesh series
Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Riyan Parag, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Mayank Yadav.
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