"His stats are not favoring him at the moment" - Harbhajan Singh on who among KL Rahul and Shubman Gill should open In Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023
Former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh believes young opener Shubman Gill should replace KL Rahul at the top of the order in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Gill has been in stunning form across formats of late and Harbhajan feels the hosts should use this form to their advantage. The former cricketer also shed light on KL Rahul's poor returns across formats over the past 12 months.
Rahul, India's stand-in captain in the Test series against Bangladesh, was unable to make an impression with the bat.
In a video on his YouTube channel, here's what Harbhajan Singh had to say:
"According to me, India's openers in the Australia series should be Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill. The form he is in, Gill is on another level.
"Even though KL Rahul is a top player, his stats (across all formats in 2022) are not favouring him at the moment. Whereas Gill is in the form of his life. He has shattered multiple records in recent months."
India should stick to Shubman Gill throughout the series: Harbhajan Singh
Harbhajan has been so impressed with Gill that he wants the hosts to stick to the youngster as Rohit's opening partner for all four Tests. He feels the youngster's recent purple patch in white-ball cricket will help him score big in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as well.
On this, Harbhajan stated:
"If Team India wants to win this Test series, then Shubman Gill should open with Rohit Sharma. After scoring so many runs, I think he deserves to be in the Indian playing XI not for just one game.
"I think India should stick with Gill throughout the series. If he plays in the form and confidence that he is in, Gill will score plenty of runs for India. So I hope he gets to play."
The first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will begin in Nagpur on February 9.
Test squad for the first two Tests against Australia: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.