Addressing Indian openers' Test woes
India's problems in Tests away from home begin right at the start of their batting line-up. The two openers- the men who are assigned to give the side a solid start, seeing off the new ball and setting the right base for the strong middle order to follow, have been below par for quite some time now.
Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, and Shikhar Dhawan are the three openers who have represented India in past 3-4 years. These three openers, on paper, appear to have the variety, skill and technique to be able to afford India comfortable starts around the world.
But the game is not played on paper, especially when it's played on green pitches of England or the bouncy African pitches or the fast turf of Perth, India's opening pair suddenly looks extremely jittery. They constantly fail to give a solid start to the team.
It's not always easy being an opener, especially in the conditions that are far away from what batters are used to play back home. The pacers are fresh, agile and confident on the home pitches and there's a very little amount of time for a batsman to understand how the conditions are behaving and what the oppositions plan against him.
It's not the same case for a middle-order batsman. He can still pick the brains of a batting partner, figure out what the bowler is planning to bowl and how the pitch is behaving by simply watching the openers bat. But, for numbers one and two, that comfort doesn't exist. They have to be trusted for the toughest job with a minimal margin of error.
Over the years, India had some very fine openers, some of them the best across the globe too. And in recent years, they have found three players who have held their grounds at the top. They have been phenomenal as far as sub-continent is concerned. But they, as a pair, have failed repeatedly in the away Tests, especially, in the SENA. Also, their impact is slowly peeling off.
Even in the recent series in England this season, India's openers have become their big liability, putting loads of pressure on the Indian middle order. Virat Kohli is the sort of player who would thrive in such conditions, while, Cheteshwar Pujara is someone who would play with the utmost dedication. But, the same cannot be said of the others which has led to the batting collapses that India suffered in England.
Murali Vijay has the technique and temperament to succeed in such conditions. His currency has been to leave the balls outside the off stump very well and solidly defend the good ones right under his eyes. For Rahul and Dhawan, the path might be a little more tricky. Both the players' feet don't move well for openers, but they try to make up for that by scoring aggressively and putting the opposition bowlers in pressure quickly.
But with the likes of Anderson, Broad, Morkel or Rabada bowling fiercely and churning up unplayable spells, they've found the going tough. And when they've tried to fall back on defence, it has let them down.
Not surprisingly, India's average opening stand outside the subcontinent for the last five years ranks amongst the lowest. As the hubbub for change and the inclusion of fresh faces gets louder, many questions arise, none as strong as where is India's next opener? Certainly, the Shaw show against the Windies has raised the hopes for the fanatics.
The openers' collective failure in England had made the selectors suddenly throw the spotlight on Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal. Prithvi is still in his teenage while Agarwal has no international exposure under his belt. Not sure though, where India's best bets lie against the likes of Hazlewood and Starc in the coming weeks.
The stats of some of the openers in the first class cricket in the last five years are phenomenal. Priyank Panchal, the opener from Gujarat, has scored 3587 runs with an average of 58 and 13 centuries under his belt. Faiz Fazal has also scored 3790 runs with a healthy average of 47. In the recent past, Mayank and Shaw have been performing out of the ranks. And they have been gifted for their performances with a place in the Tests against Windies.
Shaw scored beautifully, while Mayank has still to wait for his debut. Nothing taken away from both these young guns, but is this the best to offer for a country where more than 1000 matches across the age group are organized annually? Only 3-4 options for replacement of the openers is quite blizzard for the BCCI.
Its as if India has entirely missed a huge lot of openers. Since Ishant Sharma's debut, mind well he is the most experienced player in the current side, India has offered Test caps to only five players, viz. Vijay, Mukund, Dhawan, Rahul and Shaw. While Vijay, Rahul, and Dhawan were the regulars until now, Mukund has played only seven Tests and Shaw is the latest to be honoured with the Test cap. So, since Sehwag-Gambhir duo left Indian cricket, the management has not thought of giving chances to other openers. Whenever they needed someone, they went back to Gauti, Parthiv or even sometimes Pujara as their part-time solutions.
Murali Vijay is 34 and has the extreme talent to play the highest level of cricket and with some good first-class performances, he is back for the tour down-under but one can easily see the twilight of his career. Shikhar Dhawan is 32 and has only a couple of the fifties outside the subcontinent, so for him to make his chance back against the Aussies was the most difficult.
KL Rahul seems a long-term prospect but has failed to perform consistently. Besides the brilliant 149 in the last Test, he failed miserably in the whole series. Even in the Windies series, where Shaw was taking the bowlers to the cleaners, Rahul failed to remain impactful. Also, all three have been on the receiving end of injuries too. Definitely, Shaw would feature in the playing XI in the first Test against the Aussies.
India could have used their long home season previous year to give someone like Mayank Agarwal a go. Some others including Faiz Fazal, Priyank Panchal, R Samarth, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sanjay Ramaswamy, needed to be given a shot, at least for the 'A' side. But the chief selectors chose not to, revolving around the established trio.
Now, when the form of all three established openers has hit the bottoms India are looking for desperate measures to fix the issue. With most desperate measures, India have been trying, one can predict the outcome of this one too. The only silver lining for the Indian side is the kind of class, consistency and technique Prithvi Shaw is showing.