After finishing second in the ICC World Test Championship 2021-23 cycle with a defeat to Australia in the final, Team India begin a new cycle with a tour of the Caribbean.
The Rohit Sharma-led Indian team though, will be enjoying a month’s break from cricketing action before they are seen in action again, at least in the international arena.
Following their 209-run defeat at the hands of the Pat Cummins-led Australia at the Oval between 7-12 June, the Indian team will not be in action until the two-match Test series in West Indies that begins on 12 July. The Tests will then be followed by three ODIs and five T20Is, with the Indian team staying back in the Caribbean until mid-August.
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India’s poor performance in the WTC final, in which they could not cross the 300-mark even once while Australia posted a match-winning total of 469 in the first innings, will lead to a lot of questions and might force skipper Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid to make some changes to their combination in the West Indies series and beyond.
Among the questions India will be hoping to find an answer to in the build-up to the first Test in Dominica would be the ideal wicket-keeper.
Rishabh Pant is yet to fully recover after meeting with a car accident in December, and is slowly beginning to walk without support at the moment. Former India captain KL Rahul too has failed to regain fitness after undergoing a thigh surgery ahead of the WTC Final, which has effectively ruled him out of action for a large portion of the year.
Wriddhiman Saha, meanwhile, has not represented India since the Mumbai Test against New Zealand in December 2021 and in all likelihood, might have played his final game for the national team already.
Which leaves India with two choices for the wicket-keeper’s slot in the upcoming seriers: Srikar Bharat and Ishan Kishan. Let’s take a look at the two in detail below:
Kishan:
Kishan was overlooked for the World Test Championship final against Australia but his superior batting skills compared to Bharat makes him the likelier candidate to be slotted into the playing XI in the first of the two Tests.
Pant too was initially not considered as skilled a keeper as say a Saha. Not only would Pant improve his glovework over time to transform into one of the better keepers of the current generation, he would thrive with the bat and produce several game-changing knocks for the Indian team batting in the middle-order, and would be responsible for some of their most memorable victories in recent times.
Kishan, too, bats left-handed and is seen as someone who can take on bowling attacks in the manner that Pant has in recent years. The Mumbai Indians wicketkeeper-batter, who represents Jharkhand in the domestic circuit, will head to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru where he will undergo training in the build-up to the West Indies tour and has skipped the Duleep Trophy in the process.
India might just end up giving Kishan and Bharat one Test each in the series, but Kishan is likely to get the nod earlier.
Bharat:
Bharat was preferred ahead of Kishan in the WTC final, and while he gave a good account of himself behind the stumps in the marquee clash against the Aussies, the Andhra wicketkeeper-batter ended up registering scores of 5 and 23 at The Oval in London.
What further doesn’t help his case is the fact that he is yet to score a fifty in the Test format since making his debut in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Nagpur earlier this year.
The practice of selecting wicketkeepers purely on the basis of their glove work appears to be a thing of the past in the sport, else someone like Saha would have made way more Test appearances than 40 and should have been the No 1 choice following MS Dhoni’s retirement from the format in December 2014.
There is little doubt over the fact that Bharat was superb behind the stumps in the WTC Final. Bharat pulled off a number of excellent catches in the match and kept particularly well to the likes of Mohammed Shami, whose exaggerated movement is known to cause problems to the likes of Pant.
That aside, he was also spot on with his instincts when it came to DRS calls, helping minimise wastage of reviews in the process.
All that he needs to do is work on his batting skills. Then he might very well be giving Pant some competition for the first-choice wicketkeeper’s slot down the road.
But for now, India have to pick players with match-winning abilities, and it seems from the options they have, Kishan fits the bill more than Bharat.
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