India are 2-0 up in the series, and under no pressure to ring the changes. But with the likes of Mayank Agarwal, who averages 69 in India, not even in the squad, Rahul is now very much in the last-chance saloon.
Usually, when a team is 2-0 up in a series, having won both Tests emphatically inside three days, the last thing you’ll hear are rumblings about team selection. But this is Indian cricket, and things are seldom as straightforward as they should be. On the eve of the Test in Indore – given the Test at the very last minute after the outfield in Dharamsala wasn’t ready on time – the focus isn’t as much on the embattled tourists, who will have to navigate a path back into the series without their captain, and their most prolific opening batsman of the last decade. Instead, game-eve talk is set to be dominated by who India will pick to open the batting alongside Rohit Sharma – KL Rahul or Shubman Gill.
It’s a debate that has seen former India players at loggerheads on social media. Advocating for Rahul to be given a little more rope is Aakash Chopra, who knows full well how arduous a task opening the batting can be. In the opposite camp is Venkatesh Prasad, whose task was once to ask questions of opening batsmen. Prasad was a stalwart of the formidable Karnataka sides of the 1990s, while Chopra helped end Delhi’s 16-year wait for the Ranji Trophy title in 2007-08. It’s to Prasad’s credit that he hasn’t allowed parochial thoughts to come in the way of his analysis.
There is merit in both arguments, which is why the Indian team management faces such a difficult decision. The post-pandemic world hasn’t been kind to Indian batsmen. Where once it was overseas tours that asked the most difficult questions, there are now no home comforts to be found either. When India thrashed England 4-0 in 2016-17, for example, most of the pitches allowed the batsmen to feast for three days and more, before crumbling enough for R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja to spin their magic.
The surfaces in recent times have been so challenging that even Todd Murphy, a debutant off-spinner, has been made to look like a modern-day Jim Laker. Now, that’s no slight on Murphy, who is undoubtedly a gifted young bowler, but it’s hard to imagine him taking a seven-wicket haul on most of the pitches India played on before the pandemic.
It’s quite revealing that of the 16 centuries India’s batsmen have made in the past three years, only seven have come at home. Of the specialist batsmen playing in this series, only Rohit (two) and Shreyas Iyer are on the list. Rishabh Pant is sadly out for the foreseeable future, Ashwin and Jadeja are all-rounders, and Mayank Agarwal is not part of the squad. It’s of as much concern that only Rohit and Jadeja average more than 50 at home, among those who have played five Tests or more.
Cheteshwar Pujara averages 22, Virat Kohli 26, and Gill 26.30. And Rahul? The two Tests in this series against Australia are the only ones he has played at home in that time. What’s kept him in the side them are overseas displays, most notably the centuries at Lord’s (2021) and Centurion (2022), both in much-lauded Indian wins.
Apart from Pant, no other Indian batsman has made two centuries abroad in the past three years. That he averages a mediocre 33.22 from nine Tests despite those two tons should tell you just how wildly inconsistent Rahul is. He’s hardly alone in that though. Pujara averages 35.75 and Kohli 27.50. Gill can point to an average of 39.72 from six overseas Tests, though his century in Chattogram came only after India had already eked out a match-winning 254-run lead.
Overall, there is little to separate the two. Gill has scored 100 runs more, but in two more Tests, and his average is also not markedly better. In what has been by far its most successful era, Indian cricket hasn’t shied away from horses-for-courses selections. Jasprit Bumrah, who few saw as a Test bowler, was one such in South Africa in 2018. Axar Patel, who has played all ten of his Tests in India or Bangladesh, is another.
It’s only natural then that questions are raised when batting thoroughbreds are ignored. In December 2021, Agarwal delivered one of the all-time-great performances in a Test at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. He made 150 and 62 in a match where New Zealand scored 62 in the first innings. The next-highest score on either side was Daryl Mitchell’s 60.
Now, Agarwal will be the first to accept that he hasn’t done himself justice away from home. In 12 Tests in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies, he has five half-centuries and an average of 25.65. But put him on an Indian pitch, and Ordinary Joe becomes Superman. In nine home Tests, Agarwal has four hundreds and a mind-boggling average of 69.07. if anyone should be scratching his head over Rahul’s continued selection, it’s his long-time Karnataka teammate.
There’s little doubt though that the Rahul situation has been made worse by the wretched recent form, especially at home, of India’s two most illustrious batsmen. When Kohli and Pujara have put up such dismal numbers, is it fair to point the finger at Rahul? But with Gill having been in such sublime form across formats recently, and Sarfaraz Khan churning out big scores in the Ranji Trophy for fun, we may just be coming to the end of a chapter or two.
Indian cricket has already moved on from Ajinkya Rahane, who scored only three centuries in the second half of his 82-Test career, and you sense that the one-format Pujara, and Rahul, who hasn’t set the stage alight in any form of the game recently, are the next ones in line for the chopping block. Kohli, who has been a far greater player than either, also isn’t exempt from scrutiny in Test cricket.
With India under no pressure to ring the changes, Gill’s time may not come in Indore, or even in Ahmedabad next week. But for Rahul, one of a small handful of Indian batsmen to score Test hundreds in Australia, England and South Africa, the clock is ticking. Indore could well be his last chance to stop the rapid descent from vice-captain to reject.