Asia Cup 2023: Ishan Kishan to Play Middle Order, Sanju Samson Not Expected to Test

By | Bullscore 1 Sep, 2023

Last week, during a practice camp in Bangalore, Rahul Dravid, the team’s coach, invited the players to his house for dinner. That evening, players gathered with the chief selector, Ajit Agarkar, and other staff members. Ishan Kishan, in particular, seemed very happy, making jokes and interacting with everyone. These are good times for Ishan. He has scored three consecutive half-centuries against West Indies, and injuries to key players have given him a chance to secure a spot in the middle-order for the upcoming World Cup. This opportunity will begin with the Asia Cup, where India plans to try him out at positions No.4 or No.5 against Pakistan and Nepal.

Due to KL Rahul’s injury, he won’t be part of the Asia Cup’s group stages. So, the team’s new plan is to have Ishan Kishan bat in the middle of the order. Even though Sanju Samson is with the team as a backup for Rahul, it seems unlikely that he will find a place in the World Cup squad when it’s announced on September 5. As a result, the team is considering giving Kishan a chance at positions No.4 or No.5.

Since Shikhar Dhawan hasn’t been in the team’s plans since last December, and Kishan, who is usually an opener, showed his skills by scoring a double century against Bangladesh, he secured a spot as the third-choice opener. However, the middle-order composition for India hasn’t been certain, especially with the top three positions of Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma, and Virat Kohli looking solid. This uncertainty increased when Shreyas Iyer, who usually did well at No.4, got injured. Suryakumar Yadav also didn’t perform well in that spot.

While playing Sanju Samson could provide flexibility, the team doesn’t want to complicate things so close to the World Cup. With Kishan’s position already established, bringing Samson back into the mix now would create more challenges. In recent weeks, when Rahul’s availability was uncertain, the team considered rearranging the top three, possibly having either Rohit or Kohli bat at No.4.

However, after a week-long training camp in Bangalore, the team’s decision-makers chose not to change the positions of the top three. They believe it’s important to maintain stability at the top. Instead of that, they’ve decided to try Ishan Kishan in the middle-order, even though he’s not a regular in the starting XI. This move is interesting because Kishan is a left-handed batsman and could bring a different dynamic.

In the six matches where Kishan has batted in the middle-order (at No.4), his average is 22.75. He sometimes struggles against spinners when he starts his innings. Kishan will be one of the two backup batsmen in the squad, alongside Suryakumar Yadav.

WC squad selection

At the same time, it’s known that the senior national selection committee will have a meeting on September 5, which is a day after India’s group match against Nepal. This meeting is to decide which players will be in the squad for the World Cup. All the teams that are taking part need to give their list of players to the ICC on September 5. It seems like this meeting will be in Kandy, and Ajit Agarkar, who is the chairman of selectors, will join the team there on Thursday.

Even though India got to Kandy on Wednesday, they didn’t have practice on Thursday. They’re planning to have practice on Friday evening. The weather forecasts say that there might be some rain over the next three days, which has created a lot of uncertainty about the India vs. Pakistan match. But on Thursday, there’s some good news – even though the sky was dark during Sri Lanka’s match against Bangladesh, there was only a short and strong rain that lasted a couple of minutes.

When it comes to choosing the players, India first picked a group of 17 players for the Asia Cup. They need to reduce this group to 15 players. It looks like Tilak Varma and one of the seam bowlers might not make the final list. Because India’s batting order isn’t very deep, they have a decision to make about the last fast bowling option. It could be either Shardul Thakur or Prasidh Krishna. While Krishna can be an aggressive choice during the middle part of the game, the team’s management believes that Thakur’s batting skills will be needed at some point. Recently, Pakistan was able to beat Afghanistan in the last over of the game because of some good performances from their lower-order batsmen, but India doesn’t have the same luxury in white-ball cricket.

Jay Shah, who’s the secretary of the BCCI, is also expected to arrive in the hilly area on Friday before India’s match against Pakistan on Saturday. It seems like he’ll stay there to help choose the final squad.

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