India vs Australia 4th Test, Ahmedabad: KS Bharat can give Ishan Kishan the lead as Rohit Sharma and Co. looking for a better batting performance in the series decider. Mohammed Shami is looking to make a comeback to bring the attack to the fore.
In a cricket-focused nation like India, a loss in a home Test match in highly concentrated conditions for the all-rounders could throw open a box of questions. Indore’s loss to Australia in less than two and a half days did that. India’s restless top order with Captain Rohit Sharma being the exception seems to have run out of low support. With an extended patch, fly-half KL Rahul is a clear target for the third Test. He was replaced by Shubman Gill, who looked threatening in the two legs of the last Test but did nothing. But the problems with India’s Test batting team go deeper than just one player. There were collective misses from Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, and KS Bharat in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, and Ravichandran Ashwin covered the deficits of the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi which led to India’s victory but at that time there was no low rescue system during the third Test, and India won.
Ahead of the fourth Test of the series in Ahmedabad from Thursday, the focus is on India’s batting department and indeed the field.
Pujara, with an unbeaten 59 in the last two Tests, emphasized his quality in the Indian side. Kohli, classy as he is, has never been stable in the middle. India’s past success story at home, Shreyas Iyer, also did not do a terrible job of questioning his status. So what is the solution?
Head coach Rahul Dravid asked to put India’s batting performance in good condition and did not want to double down on “results” in runs and support the runners. He even defended KS Bharat by talking about their 17 runs in Indore and 22 runs unbeaten in Delhi in the second leg.
Wicketkeeper: Ishan Kishan
All-rounders: Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, R Ashwin
Pacers: Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav
