The one day out of two that were possible from India’s practice match against an Australian Prime Minister’s 11 in Canberra, played as a day-night fixture with an eye on the pink-ball Test in Adelaide later this week, has thrown up a few questions.
The biggest of which is: where will Rohit Sharma bat in Adelaide, and potentially the remainder of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy?
Rohit linked up with the squad during the Perth Test match and after a few net sessions, yesterday’s innings in Canberra was his first and only in a live match before the second Test in Adelaide. India opened with Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul, Shubman Gill returned from injury and scored 50 at one down before he retired himself and Rohit batted at No 4, from where he made three runs off 11 balls before nicking a ball from 19-year-old seamer Charlie Anderson to first slip.
Now while India won the practice match by five wickets, plenty are wondering how much to read into Rohit’s batting demotion to No 4 while Rahul opened the innings against the PM’s XI. Was it just one of those examples where, as we’ve seen countless times, teams don’t really take these matches all that seriously? Does the Indian team management believe that Rahul is the better opener for Adelaide? Or was it a case of Rohit wanting to bat lower in hopes of getting more time under lights?
Since he was made to open in 2019 as the World Test Championship came into existence, Rohit has only batted at the top of the order. In the last five years, he has scored 2685 runs at an average of 44, including nine centuries and five half-centuries. Rohit’s move up the order after spending 27 Test matches batting at various positions in the middle order saw India win many home series as well as a couple famous wins in England, but this year his form has dipped.
He managed two centuries during India’s 4-1 win over England at home, but in five Tests against Bangladesh and New Zealand he made just 133 runs at an average of 13. Rohit has only opened twice in Australia, in the 2020-21 series, for scores of 26, 52, 44 and 7. His recent struggles against seam at home, however, do not cut the image of an opener looking capable of facing the new ball in challenging Australian conditions, which has led many to speculate that he should drop down the batting order.
Rahul did the job very well in Rohit’s absence in Perth, and now that the team management sent him up during the tour match in Canberra, it does indicate that Rahul will be preferred in the same role for the Adelaide Test.
Gill’s 50 appears to have convinced India of his availability, and with Virat Kohli scoring his 30th Test century last week from No 4, the only option for Rohit, should he not open, is No 5. This would give Rishabh Pant the cushion of batting one spot lower on top of his wicketkeeping role, and there is the promise of Rohit being a threat once the new ball has been worn down.
But are India, and the man himself, at the age of 37, willing to rejig the line up?
