MUMBAI: Over the years, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have formed an intimidating opening pair for India. KL Rahul has made his mark in bits and pieces, but his recent purple patch with the bat has presented Virat Kohli and the team-management a selection conundrum per se.
Rohit and Dhawan, ever since they started opening together in 2013, have become one of India’s most successful opening pairs at the top-scoring 4708 runs from 105 ODI innings. But while he was gone for a major chunk last year, KL Rahul grabbed his opportunities at the top and formed impressive partnerships with Rohit.
Last month, Rahul put up scores of 62,11 and 91 in the T20Is against West Indies, and 6, 102 and 77 in the ODIs and extended his fine form with 45 and 54 in India’s 2-0 win over Sri Lanka. Dhawan, since his comeback, has played a couple of impactful and crucial knocks as well. With the three-match ODI series against Australia nearing, what combinations will India go ahead with remains to be seen.
“It’s a good dilemma to have. Rohit is an obvious choice of course. Both of them - Shikhar and Rahul - are playing well. Shikhar has done well in One-dayers, Rahul is in great form, so we’ll deal with it when we have to. There are still a couple of days to go. The management will sit down and make a choice. I don’t see it as an issue and one of them will have to sit out,” batting coach Vikram Rathour said on Sunday.
Over the last year, the team management has tried to accommodate the triumvirate in the ODIs. In the last year’s World Cup in England, Rahul started off at No. 4 with Kohli separating him and the openers before suffering an injury. However, with Dhawan on the sidelines, Rahul grabbed the opportunity to open the innings in ODIs.
With the T20 World Cup scheduled to take place in October, India have 11 T20I matches left six of which are against Australia. Sure enough, the IPL will have a huge impact on who eventually boards the flight to Australia but Rathour reckons India can sure do with playing T20Is in the build-up to the World Cup.
“It’s a different format and cricket is a game of confidence. So as a batter and bowler, especially when you are playing against a team like Australia, who are one of the better teams in the world, performances do make a difference. It gives you a lot of confidence,” he added. “We’ll take it as any other series and playing against one of the better sides in the world, we are looking to do well as a team, looking to perform and win if possible.”
