There has been a lot of talk about India’s middle order conundrum.
With many questioning Rishabh Pant’s absence from the 15-man squad, Dinesh Karthik has found himself cornered in the silhouette of his fellow cricketers, while KL Rahul quietly slipped under the radar to make the 15.
Now that the squad is done and dusted and the World Cup is just a couple of days away, should we be brooding over the selection debate? Probably not.
But we can certainly ponder whether the right choices have been made. It is, of course, easy to be a selector once the tournament is done away with.
I was thrilled to see Rahul, Vijay Shankar and Karthik making it into the 15. This is primarily the same squad that India selected for the Australia and New Zealand ODI series, with the exception of Shankar making it instead of Ambati Rayudu.
Virat Kohli leads an uncertain batting order into the World Cup. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Rayudu was given his chances but as he played more and more against quality attacks, question marks over his batting increased.
Shankar, on the other hand, showed remarkable composure and temperament for not so many runs, but in testing conditions and situations.
Karthik has always been the selfless guy, doing his work to the best of his ability and displaying remarkable finishing prowess under extreme pressure situations. These are the kind of characters you need in a World Cup.
Rahul has always been a story of promises falling short, and he lives another day to fight that battle.
With Shankar’s untimely injury, if Rahul is given a chance at No.4, he can flourish.
He loves the ball coming onto the bat and has all the strokes. And contrary to popular belief, he has not been a failure in the middle order – he has barely played enough matches in that position to be labelled a failure.
Recently, Pakistan made some last-minute inclusions to their preliminary World Cup squad. Should India have also gone down a similar route?
In the recent Pakistan-England series, scores of 350 were par and Pakistan ended up losing all four games despite scoring more than 340 in three of them.
So should a destructive batsman like Pant been included at the last minute?
He brings a much needed left-handed element in the middle order, he can really shift the momentum, he can push the score from a decent 320 to a matchwinning 360 or 370, and he had a successful IPL campaign following a poor T20 stint by both Shankar and Karthik.
Virat Kohli said IPL performances won’t have a bearing on selection for the World Cup. Perhaps they are sticking to that, and perhaps we are reading too much into IPL.
KL Rahul, though, must be thanking the IPL gods for his place in the World Cup squad. Could India have taken the bold step of including Pant in the final squad at the cost of Karthik or Shankar?
India must do whatever it takes to win back the World Cup.
These questions will be answered in the coming 50 days or so.
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