WTC Final: Can Team India’s ‘old’ middle order play the new-age game? | Cricket News – Times of India
India’s Test middle-order is standing on a precipice. Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane are in their mid-30s and batting to prove they have enough muscle to carry India’s batting through the sternest of challenges. And the World Test Championship final against Australia at the Oval in London will be the prime indicator of their readiness.
In 18 months, Pujara and Rahane have been on a journey from being dropped as India’s batting mainstays to clawing their way back through domestic grind even as Kohli was trying to prove he could still have a definitive impact on Test matches.
All this while, Team India head coach Rahul Dravid went about establishing Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer as the pillars of the middle order for the future.
Dravid hoped to build on the pool that he had nurtured during his time as the head of India’s developmental sides before taking up the assignment with the senior team in November 2021. One couldn’t really fault him. For, Pant rose meteorically to become an irresistible force in the middle order starting with the tour of Australia in 2020-21. Iyer too started coming along nicely by playing crucial knocks in crunch situations.
Ravindra Jadeja, a bit surprisingly, also emerged as a dependable Test batter. These three, with the help of the lower order, got used to salvaging a lot of Indian innings.
It’s interesting that the team management under Kohli was resistant towards Pant becoming a regular member of the first XI before the historical turnaround in Australia. Pujara, Kohli and Rahane were the first picks, eyes closed. In two and a half years, Rahane has managed to sneak back into the team with the current team management hoping he could fill Pant’s shoes at No. 5.
In essence, India’s most experienced trio is left to make up for the absence of Pant and Iyer. It is also a reflection on the selectors’ inability to find a second line after Pant and Iyer and compulsion to fall back on the old warhorses.
One must look beyond the mere numbers that Pant, Iyer and Jadeja have put up. Pant’s ultra-aggressive counterattacking approach, ably complemented by Iyer and Jadeja, was kind of a prelude to England’s new-found all-out brand of Test cricket. Test cricket has moved on from its basic grinding-it-out nature of batting. Often described as reckless, this brand of cricket has become the Plan A to succeed in the longest format for some of the top teams.
Pant and Jadeja’s counter-attacking centuries during the only Test against England at Edgbaston last year highlights the trend. For the record, Pujara, Kohli and Rahane have been striking at 37.53, 44.22 and 46.1 since that Australian tour of 2020-21 that saw Pant’s ascension as a prolific Test batter.
Pujara and Rahane have, however, now testified in favour of the enterprising. On the eve of his 100th Test in Delhi in February, Pujara conceded that he went back to County cricket to add more shots to his armoury following the advice of Dravid after being dropped in 2022.
“Playing white-ball cricket for Saurashtra and Sussex really helped. It made me a little more open-minded and flexible,” Pujara had said.
Rahane’s comeback story too has been built on this approach. He played domestic cricket with an inherent aggressive approach which culminated in a dominating IPL season. At the fag end of the Ranji Trophy season, Rahane had asserted that he has been watching old videos of his batting to get back into that frame of mind.
“I want to bat with the same mindset and show the same intent that I showed in IPL and Ranji Trophy. I would not like to think about the format. The way I am batting now, I don’t want to complicate things and the more I keep it simple, better it is,” Rahane stated to BCCI.tv.
Most discussions on India’s batting line-up for the WTC final has revolved around how India could fill Pant’s void. Experts have hinted at the need to find an option that could bat as close to Pant’s style as possible.
Hence, the clamour for Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav’s inclusion. But the team management would know that it will have to eventually come down to Pujara, Kohli, Rahane along with Jadeja to make sure India don’t feel Pant’s absence much.
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