Also, who takes the No.3 and No.4 slots?
Karthik Krishnaswamy24-Jun-20221:17
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India have just gone through an entire five-match T20I series without making a single change to their XI. Now they begin a series in Ireland with a squad that looks similar in many respects, but is different in a couple of major ways. Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer are absent, having joined India’s Test squad in England, and Hardik Pandya will captain the side. Rahul Dravid is also away in England, so VVS Laxman will take over coaching duties. How will India’s XI shape up under Hardik and Laxman?Who bats at Nos. 3 and 4?
India’s most difficult selection could be who fills the No. 3 and 4 slots vacated by Shreyas and Pant, with their squad containing five candidates for those two roles. Of the five, Deepak Hooda and Venkatesh Iyer are incumbents who spent the entire South Africa series on the bench, while Suryakumar Yadav and Sanju Samson are making comebacks.Related
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Suryakumar will probably slot straight back into the side at No. 3, having only missed the South Africa series because he was nursing a forearm injury. Given what he’s done in his brief international career so far – he averages 39.00 and has a strike rate of 165.56 after 12 T20I innings – he’s probably ahead of Shreyas in the queue for middle-order spots in a full-strength India side.It’s harder to choose between the remaining four for the other slot. Samson and the uncapped Tripathi bring similar attributes. Both are known for their ability, and willingness, to go hard at the bowling early in their innings, and both are equally good at home against pace and spin, with Samson boasting particularly impressive strike-rate numbers.Hooda, meanwhile, earned his call-up thanks to a consistent run of form at No. 3 for Lucknow Super Giants, and apart from clean striking over extra-cover also brings the ability to bowl offspin. India might find this useful, with their other spinners turning their stock ball in the other direction (though that only holds true if you consider the legbreak to be Ravi Bishnoi’s stock ball and not the wrong’un).3:43
Can Umran Malik be a part of India’s T20 World Cup plans?
Venkatesh seems the unlikeliest of the five to bat at Nos. 3 or 4, given that he’s usually been used either as opener or finisher, but his left-handedness – an ingredient India otherwise lack in the middle order in Pant’s absence – gives him a valuable point of difference.The team management, however, probably views Venkatesh as a back-up to Hardik rather than a top-four option. With Hardik captaining the side, Venkatesh may only get his chance if India decide to go with two seam-bowling allrounders in Irish conditions and leave out Axar Patel, the spin-bowling allrounder.Who’s the wicketkeeper?
India’s squad contains three keepers in Dinesh Karthik, Ishan Kishan and Samson. With regular keeper Pant absent, the choice of who takes the big gloves will probably hinge less on pure keeping skills than on who of the three contenders is likeliest to have a settled place in the XI. This probably rules out Samson, who wasn’t part of the squad for the series against South Africa, and who is one of numerous contenders vying for limited space in the upper middle order.When all the regulars return to the T20I set-up, Karthik is probably the only one of the three who will remain in the first-choice XI, given how he’s pushed himself to the front of the queue to play the finisher’s role. Kishan will probably remain the back-up opener behind Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul, even though he scored more runs than anyone else on either side during the South Africa series.The clearest clue to the identity of India’s wicketkeeper in Ireland came in the BCCI release that announced the squad for the tour. There may have been three keepers in the squad, but only Karthik had “(wicket-keeper)” next to his name.1:28
Jaffer: Arshdeep should be considered for selection against Ireland
Will Arshdeep and Malik finally get their chance?
The call-ups of the left-arm death-bowling specialist Arshdeep Singh and the scarily fast middle-overs enforcer Umran Malik were the most headline-worthy selections when India announced their squad to face South Africa, but neither got a game in that series. It made sense for the team management to stick to their first-choice bowling attack given the way the series went, with India having to come back from 2-0 down, but now, perhaps, could be the time for a few experiments.Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Harshal Patel are probably already sure-shot selections for the T20 World Cup later this year, fitness permitting, as is Yuzvendra Chahal on the spin front. India could perhaps rest the three of them at different points during the series, and test out Arshdeep, Malik and Bishnoi. This series might represent India’s best opportunity to test out their skills in unfamiliar conditions, with both quicks uncapped and Bishnoi yet to play international cricket away from home.
