Rajkot track offers injury-hit India hope of batting revival

Nine days between Test matches in a series in India is rare, and it becomes rarer when the visiting team jets off to Abu Dhabi on a chartered flight arranged by the BCCI, to spend time with their families and endless rounds of golf after their four-day loss in Visakhapatnam. But that is England cricket under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, with the players not expected to carry their cricket kits from India to the UAE. Welcome to the world of Bazball, where the loss of the team’s most experienced spinner in Jack Leach has hardly raised eyebrows and no replacement has been summoned for. And even the visa blunder that saw 19-year-old Rehan Ahmed stopped at the Rajkot airport because he had a single-entrance electronic visa has not really put a dampener on the touring team’s plans.

In those same nine days, India have been jolted by news that Virat Kohli will miss the third and fourth Tests and might not make it back for the last one in early March and that KL Rahul, 48 hours after being named in the squad for the remaining fixtures, was not for the third game. The BCCI selectors did not rest Jasprit Bumrah as some had reported would happen, dropped the struggling Shreyas Iyer, added two pace options and are hopeful Ravindra Jadeja passing the mandatory fitness tests for clearance ahead of the third Test starting on February 15.

With Iyer dropped and Rahul injured, the team must decide who bats at numbers four and five. The uncapped Devdutt Padikkal has been rewarded for good form with Karnataka and India A in 2024 with his first call-up to the Test squad, but the left-hander is an opener by trade who bats at No 3 now and then. Rajat Patidar, who made his debut in Visakhapatnam, should keep his place in Iyer and Rahul’s absence. The other uncapped batting option, Sarfaraz Khan, might get the not ahead of Padikkal given his success at No 5.

If Jadeja plays at six or seven, the biggest call for the team management will be to drop one of Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel. Kuldeep played in Jadeja’s absence and took four wickets, while going at four per over in both innings. Axar went at six and 5.35 per over in that match and his series bowling average is 41.20. One of the two spin options will have to make way for Jadeja. Axar offers little with the ball on flat tracks, whereas Kuldeep’s angle and changes in pace are hypothetically better suited on such surfaces. India must think bold and opt for Kuldeep, even if they lose batting depth in benching Axar.

KS Bharat’s poor returns as a Test batsman will probably be overlooked, which means the uncapped Dhruv Jurel will sit out again. There is a case for handing a debut to Jurel, not just because Bharat is struggling to score runs. This series is unlikely to see even a single square turner, thus increasing the possibility of opting for a wicketkeeper who promises a different approach with the bat despite not having played Test cricket.

The sight of the pitch at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot might lift the spirits of India’s struggling batsmen, given how the 22 yards there have previously been a batting paradise. Nine hundreds have been scored in two Tests held in Rajkot so far, and even though two of India’s four centurions at the venue in Kohli (out for the series, it looks like) and Cheteshwar Pujara (dropped) are not around for the third match, the traditional nature of the SCAS Stadium should be good news for India.

In the loss in Hyderabad and the win in Visakhapatnam, many slammed the ineffectiveness of those Indian bowlers whose last names are not Bumrah, while others went after Rohit’s negative captaincy. Some pinpointed dropped catches. But if you have closely watched this Indian team over the past two years, the real problem will be very evident: the batting. The irony of it all is that Rahul Dravid is India’s head coach.

Since the start of 2022, in home Test matches, Rohit Sharma averages 32 with one score of 50 or more. That it was a brilliant match-setting 120 in Nagpur last year in the first Test [PLEASE LINK TO https://in.dafanews.com/cricket/bgt-have-india-shoved-australia-out-of-the-series-64484.html] of the Border Gavaskar Trophy must be acknowledged, but in his 12 other innings at home in two years India’s skipper has a highest of 46. Clearly, like his team-mates, Rohit is struggling. And like the others, his struggles have come on three turning tracks, an absolute featherbed in Ahmedabad and now two sporting tracks in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.

Shubman Gill’s 12 innings prior to his second-innings hundred in Visakhapatnam were 34, 0, 23, 10, 36, 26, 2, 29*, 10, 6, 18 and 13. Iyer’s previous 12 Test innings are 4, 12, 0, 26, 31, 6, 0, 4*, 35, 13, 27 and 29 and that is why he is not part of the squad today. Bharat averages 20 from seven Tests. Rahul scored a fantastic century in South Africa in December and 86 and 22 in the Hyderabad Test before getting injured, but last year he averaged 12 during the BGT. Shifting from turning tracks to more even pitches like we’ve seen in this series so far has not entirely made life easier for India’s batsmen, but there are more even contributions. In Rajkot, there is hope of a proper batting revival, even if we don’t get to see a complete batting beauty.