Last night a storm hit Indian cricket after a report claimed that Rohit Sharma has been told by the BCCI that he is not in its scheme of things for the 2027 World Cup and that Sunday’s third ODI against England at Lord’s could very well be his last game in India colours.
If Rohit indeed doesn’t play again, then who replaces him? Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored a century against Afghanistan last month, is the ideal replacement. If the BCCI has indeed made up its mind on Rohit, be prepared, you are going to hear this a lot in the coming days: that a talented batsman like Jaiswal can’t be kept out of the team any longer, and that’s why they have decided to move on from the former India captain.
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However, if truth be told, nobody is really thinking about Jaiswal. If they were, he would have been part of the ongoing ODI series at least as a squad member. In the second ODI at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Thursday, India were clearly a batsman short. Like the first game at Edgbaston, India played three all-rounders: Shivam Dube, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar. Patel and Sundar had scored fifties in India’s win in the first game; however, the Cardiff track was a tricky one. Instead of going in with three all-rounders — with two of them not inspiring much confidence most of the time in white-ball cricket, Dube and Sundar — India could have gone in with an extra specialist batsman, but guess what? There was no one in the squad who fit that description. If Jaiswal had been in the squad, he could have played, if not as an opener, then at another position. On a tricky wicket, he would have been a better option than Dube or Sundar any day.
This just goes on to prove that the Indian team management, as well as the selection panel, are not serious about Jaiswal at all. If they had been serious, they would have taken him to England and nurtured him as a backup. If Rohit wasn’t going to bat as expected, Jaiswal could have been thrown in the mix, the Playing XI, that is.
A terrific all-format player!
India neither planned nor prepared well for the ongoing tour. One really feels bad for Jaiswal. Despite showing a lot of promise across formats, when it comes to white-ball cricket, Jaiswal, a regular Test opener now, is nowhere in the foreground as he should be. In the preceding T20Is against England and Ireland, it was Vaibhav Sooryavanshi who was preferred over Jaiswal, even though the latter’s record in T20Is is quite good. An average of 36.15 and a strike rate of 164.31! The truth of the matter is that much before Sooryavanshi’s advent, Jaiswal had been pushed to the background. In the six ODIs that he has played so far, he has got two centuries too.
Jaiswal not in the squad means only one thing: the Indian selectors are not considering him for next year’s World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. That definitely appears to be the case at present. In fact, it might be KL Rahul as a No.3 opening option behind Rohit and Shubman Gill. Rahul, who didn’t play on Thursday on account of illness and was replaced by Ishan Kishan, has opened in ODIs in the past, and the team management may have him in mind in case of an eventuality. Or even Kishan! We will never know what they are thinking until they decide to make it public, but one thing is sure: it’s a gross injustice to the 24-year-old left-handed batsman from Mumbai and the Rajasthan Royals.