Prior to the first Test against West Indies, India captain Rohit Sharma confirmed a few batting positions as well. He said Yashasvi Jaiswal is all set to open and Shubman Gill will come down a spot to No. 3 as the place has been vacant after Cheteshwar Pujara was dropped. Rohit also said that the call has been taken after Gill himself requested coach Rahul Dravid for the middle-order spot.
“For the batting positions, Gill will play at No. 3. He himself has said that, he had a chat with Rahul Dravid and said that he’s played his entire career at 3 and 4, and that he can perform better for the team at No. 3. And for us also it becomes better because we have a left-right opening combination. So that is what we’ll try to do and hopefully this will go for a long term. We have wanted a left-hander for a long time and we’ve got one now and lets hope he performs well for the team and can really make his spot his own,” Rohit Sharma in the pre-match press conference in Dominica.
The venue, which has helped spinners for a long, has also helped India to fix their bowling combination with R Ashwin set to return, after missing out in the World Test Championship final.
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“Looking at the wicket, it looks like we’ll play with two spinners and three seamers. Because what we’ve seen here, 2017 was the last Test played here and lot of wickets taken by the spinners. Having practiced here as well and with the bounce, we feel that we have to go with the 3-2 combination,” said Rohit Sharma.
“All these guys were in the radar and the selectors were watching them closely, I’m glad they could be rewarded,” he again stated on the youngsters picked for the series. There are also a couple of guys who missed out but unfortunately you can get only 15-16 players but everyone’s time will come. Looking forward, Indian cricket desperately needed a lefthander and we found a very good player in Jaiswal. He looks very promising and so is Ruturaj. Gill has obviously been playing good cricket for a year now and hope he continues his good form. Ruturaj has good potential in red-ball cricket, he has shown us in T20 cricket what he can do. It’s time for him to show…and pretty sure he is also looking forward to getting more and more runs for the Indian team. It’s always good for Indian cricket when you have guys like these coming in.”
The captain also shared his views on the issue of the pace attack they have less experience, stating that workload management is important for the amount of cricket they play. “This will be a challenge for Indian cricket, for the amount of cricket we play we have to. We have to manage players, rotate them, give them a break and make sure they’re fresh when they return,” again said Rohit.
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“We have to keep an eye out on what is coming in the future as well, there is a World Cup coming and we have to keep everyone fresh for it. This is also on our minds. We don’t have the luxury to focus on one particular series. We have to keep an eye out on the series coming in the future, and who is more necessary for us for the series. We have to rotate our players, and the good thing is we can give new players opportunities and you can create a bench strength. We can see how they handle the pressure of international cricket and see how they cope with it. Jaydev [Unadkat] is not a new guy, he’s been playing for 10-12 years, he made his debut then. Mukesh Kumar has come in with some consistent performances, he’s done well for his state, zonal and India A teams. We’ll see what combination we’ll play with,” concluded Rohit Sharma.
