Before the start of the limited-overs series against Sri Lanka, Indian skipper Virat Kohli had said the team would try out KL Rahul at number four position.
A failure from the batsman saw him being dropped from the playing XI later. The number four position again became open for the candidates in the fray, and the skipper changed his statement and said they would try out Hardik Pandya at number four.
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Shikhar Dhawan, who asked BCCI to release him for Australia ODI series, has made a comeback in international cricket and as soon as he returns, the number four debate will open up, as Ajinkya Rahane will have to leave the opening spot.
The only place where he is an ideal player is at number four because he is not a kind of player who will come late in the batting order and will score runs in death overs.
Rahane scored a total of four half-centuries in Australia series, and now it will be interesting to see whether he will warm bench or bat at number four in New Zealand series.
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Amidst the debate going on for this one spot, Sunil Gavaskar has come up with his own opinion, as the legendary batsman has said between four and seven, the batting order should be a floating one,
“Between four and seven, it should be a floating batting order. The kind of top 3 that we have, I think they are the world’s envy right at the moment. Whether it is Shikhar and Rohit or Ajinkya and Rohit, then Virat at 3, it’s the world’s envy. These three are scoring runs most of the time, so No.4 generally comes into bat between the 30th and 40th over and doesn’t get too much time,” Gavaskar told NDTV.
Gavaskar has made a strong point, but in some cases, a situation may come when a team might lose early wickets, as India lost in first ODI in Chennai and in that case, tinkering with the batting order is not an ideal option.
Virat Kohli had already made many changes to the batting order in past few months and more than doing good, it has become a headache for the Indian team as on some occasions, he is not able to analyse the situation well, and mistakes are committed in this case. Like we saw in the Bengaluru ODI, where MS Dhoni came into bat at number seven.
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