Middle of nowhere

Ahmedabad, February 5

Rohit Sharma’s presence as the new leader, with a fresh template to arrest the familiar middle-order muddle, is exactly what the Indian team needs while ushering in a new era, which will begin with the ODI series against the West Indies starting here tomorrow.

After a rude reality check against a weak South African side in the away series, India are now back in familiar settings with a new ODI captain in Rohit, who will team up with illustrious Rahul Dravid and strive to get India back to winning ways.

The series-opener is the historic 1,000th ODI for India, who would like to begin preparations for the 2023 World Cup on a bright note, and will indeed look at a paradigm shift in strategy.

The ‘Rohit-Dravid’ duo over the course of the next few months will underline the team’s philosophy in the 50-over format after it became clear that some rejigging is needed as a part of course-correction.

Thus, the series beginning Sunday is the perfect platform to settle their middle-order struggles.

Onus on Rohit

Firstly, Rohit, one of the finest white-ball exponents, will have to lead from the front.

With KL Rahul unavailable for the first game, and other specialist openers Shikhar Dhawan and Ruturaj Gaikwad testing positive, it will be Ishan Kishan who would be opening with the skipper.

“Ishan Kishan is the only option we have and he will open with me,” Rohit said on the eve of the series-opener. “Mayank (Agarwal) was added to the squad but he has still not finished his three-day quarantine, so Ishan will open the innings,” he elaborated. Rohit on his day can take any attack to cleaners and West Indies’, a rather inexperienced one, would be no exception and same goes for Kishan.

In the series against South Africa, save Rishabh Pant’s knock in the second game, the middle-order crumbled on all the three occasions and the need of the hour is to have impactful players in it.

“It is just that certain understandings and certain learnings we need to take in our game. The South Africa series was a great learning for us as to what we didn’t do collectively,” he added.

In terms of the bowling, left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav is back in the ODI squad, and would most probably be in the playing XI along with his seasoned partner Yuzvendra Chahal.

The 27-year-old last played an ODI against Sri Lanka in July 2021, and recently recovered from a surgery. — PTI

999: The story so far

India will be the first team to play 1,000 ODIs. Here’s India’s record against all teams:

1Yuzvendra Chahal (99) is one wicket away from completing 100 scalps in ODIs.

7This will be the first ODI at Motera in more than seven years.

28West Indies have won 28 of 58 ODIs played against India on their territory.