3 reasons why India should play Rishabh Pant in 3rd ODI vs Sri Lanka
It is now a popular and honestly, hilarious joke that from a team that used to win bilaterals and lose ICC tournaments, Team India have gone the opposite way. They won the 2024 T20 World Cup but have struggled against Sri Lanka in the ODI series.
India's underwhelming display in the second ODI can be attributed to two simple things - players facing an extremely motivated home team after a long time and a change of guard in the coaching department which has brought new ideas and thus new problems to solve at the start.
There's no sweeping solution to turn this tide around completely as it'll have to come through relentless effort and the right intentions from the management, which also deserves some time to figure everything out. But there can always be ideas to make it work.
Here's one such idea: get Rishabh Pant into the 11. It's tricky because whoever will make way for him won't deserve it but bilaterals are and should be more and more about experimentation - below we have given three reasons why this one works.
#3 Perfect counter to Sri Lanka's obvious plans
Sometimes the most obvious solution is the best one. Sri Lanka are hosting India in one of the most spin-favoring grounds in the country and having identified the visitors' weakness against the turning ball, they are happy to play with four specialist spinners.
Thanks to Rohit Sharma, India are managing the powerplay phase well but struggling when the ball gets old and the batters need to use their feet to counter turn and myriad variations from all unique tweakers. India need an outright brilliant player of such bowling in the middle overs and there's no one better than Pant.
The left-hander strikes at 105 against spin in middle overs in ODIs compared to KL Rahul's 88.
Pant would love an attack with just one frontline pacer and even playing against Jeffrey Vandersay, who took six wickets in the last game because he'll turn the ball into him. Pant has been in decent form against spinners and this could be the perfect foil to Sri Lanka's tactics.
#2 Solves the issue of constant batting order shuffles
Pant can probably only come in for KL Rahul or Shreyas Iyer. But, before anything else, one thing that needs to be clarified here: this change wouldn't have come under Rahul Dravid, who was quite comfortable with Iyer at four and Rahul at No. 5 solving India's historic issues at those positions.
Gambhir, on the other hand, doesn't seem a big fan of having two right-handers to follow three more in the top three and even pushed the duo to No. 6 and 7 in the last game, which were clearly not their strong suits. So instead of the constant shuffle, Gambhir can bring Pant in for one of them.
That'll give him a left-hander at No. 4 or 5 and keep others in their usual positions. In this way, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, and Shivam Dube, who would all be much better at No. 6 and 7, could also stick there and work on their finishing skills.
#1 KL Rahul can get some time to reflect
This is a bit harsh but Rahul has been seriously struggling behind the wickets.
In the second ODI, he missed multiple balls down the leg from the spinners, failing to grab slight or sometimes even no deflections. As Indian bowlers looked a bit rusty with their lines, he looked even more troubled.
The Karnataka man was excellent with the gloves at the 2023 World Cup and deserved to retain his place. But like with the batting department, Gautam Gambhir might have to look for a more horses-for-courses strategy in 'keeping by bringing in Pant for games that are more spin-heavy.
Pant has looked an even better wicketkeeper since recovering from his injuries after the accident and is habitual of holding his own against Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel on turning tracks. He is fixing more issues than one for India - it's just about whether Gambhir sees it the same way or wants to give KL Rahul or Shreyas Iyer a bigger rope.