Shubman Gill scored his seventh hundred in the India vs. England 3rd ODI. He broke several other records as well. Becoming the fastest to hit 2,500 runs in ODIs. His return to his Indian Premier League (IPL) home ground, the Narendra Modi Stadium, turned out to be great. But did it help the India cricket team? Was there any of playing Gill over, say, someone like Rishabh Pant, knowing full and well that this will be the Men in Blue’s last match before the ICC Champions Trophy?
Rishabh Pant, ignored by Gambhir and Rohit Sharma
Team India isn’t going to play any warm-up matches in Dubai, so if they wanted to test some of their players, they had to do it in Ahmedabad. They have a chance of Yashasvi Jaiswal in Nagpur, Harshit Rana in all three matches, Varun Chakaravarthy in Cuttack, and Arshdeep Singh and Washington Sundar here. Only Pant didn’t get a chance if all the 16 players were in the squad for the India vs. England ODI series.
None of them mentioned above were going to be part of Team India’s starting XI in the ICC Champions Trophy. At least until Jasprit Bumrah was ruled out and Harshit Rana came in his place and Jaiswal was replaced by Chakaravarthy in the squad. The question is, shouldn’t you have tested Pant?
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‘Flexible’ Rishabh Pant needs game time
What if KL Rahul gets injured? Would you want to bring Pant, who has played just 1 50-over match since December 2022? Yes, Pant would have batted out of position, but that means who has a backup opener? Since Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir have chosen to exclude Jaiswal, you might need a backup for either Shubman Gill or Rohit himself.
Yes, KL Rahul can move up the order, but then it would leave a hole in the middle. Pant has been played in the middle order the most in ODIs and has opened the batting once as well. Either way, Pant could have played either role, but how can he do that if you don’t even give him a match?
India’s squad for England ODIs
Rohit Sharma (C), Ꮪhubman Gill (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (WK), Rishabh Pant (WK), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy.
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