Former India head coach Ravi Shastri said that the vice-captaincy should not guarantee a place in the playing XI. He feels the team management should take a call on Shubman Gill or KL Rahul as an opening partner for Rohit Sharma after taking a close look at them in a training session. 23-year-old Gill has been in tremendous form in recent times as he scored centuries across all three formats in last year, while Rahul has been struggling with the form for the past few months as he lost his ODI vice-captaincy to Hardik Pandya. While the selectors backed Rahul in Tests and he was named Rohit’s deputy for the first two Test against Australia.
Shastri suggested that if a player is batting well in the nets and connecting the ball from the center of the bat better than the other, then there should not be any debate.
“Shubman or Rahul (selection) depends on the team management, what they think. Obviously, you’d want to go with what you’ve been doing in the past, but form becomes critical.
“Someone’s hitting it real sweet and it’s coming out of the centre of the bat. Then, you know, you wake up, and say, ‘listen’, I’ve been watching Gill and Rahul very closely in the nets. If it’s a hard call; when I see footwork, when I see timing as to who is batting better. If it has to be Shubman ahead of Rahul, so be it. You know, straight. You have to see that. I won’t say that Rahul is the vice-captain so he becomes the automatic choice,” Shastri said on the ICC Review
The former head coach recalled a past instance during his coaching tenure when he picked Shikhar Dhawan in the XI after watching his form in the nets and he did wonders by scoring 190.
“It can happen. It happened once in my tenure when I was a coach in Sri Lanka. There was a series that happened in India, and there were two openers. And, you know, they wanted to persevere with one. I took over and then I just saw the form of Shikhar Dhawan in the nets, and he was red-hot straight after the Champion’s Trophy in England. So we picked him and he got 190 in that game, and the rest is history,” he added.
With Suryakumar in the form of his life in T20 cricket, his presence in the squad has added to the intrigue ahead of the Nagpur Test. But Shastri said the team management should not look beyond the charismatic batter and hand him the Test debut.
“At number five, Suryakumar will get the position, because there’s no Shreyas (Iyer). There’ll be talk about, ‘can Gill bat at five?’ I think you need the right guy for the right number. At five, when you go there, especially if the ball is turning, then you need someone who is good at playing the right shots against spin.
“Surya demands that position. I think it’s straightforward.”
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