India's openers KL Rahul and Yashavi Jaiswal played a most important role in Perth as Jasprit Bumrah-led India registered a dominating 295-run win against Australia to take a 1-0 lead in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. KL Rahul, who was often seen adjusting his batting position as per the team's requirement was batted in place of India captain Rohit Sharma who missed the first Test match due to paternity leave.
Since India's win in the first Test match, there have been talks about India's opening order for the remaining series and India's Test legend Cheteshwar Pujara also suggested the side to not tinker around with the batting lineup for the Pink Ball Test.
"I think, for some reason if we can carry on with the same batting order, like KL and Yashasvi to open, Rohit could come in at three, and Shubman could come in at five," Pujara said in a chat with ESPNcricinfo.
Pujara also said that batting in top order suits KL Rahul's game. He suggested that if Rohit wants to open then KL Rahul should bat at number three.
"If Rohit wants to open, KL should bat at No. 3. Nothing later than that. I think he has to bat top of the order, because it suits his game really well. I hope we don't tinker around with that" added Pujara.
However, during the ongoing India's Pink Ball warm-up game against the Australian Prime Minister's XI India's captain Rohit Sharma listed himself at No.5 and sent KL Rahul and Yashasvi to open the batting at Manuka Oval in Manuka, Canberra.
Cricket fans started praising the Indian captain for sacrificing his batting position for KL Rahul.
Earlier in the first Test match, India openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul stitched a historic 201-run partnership for India. That was the highest first-wicket partnership by an Indian batter on Australian soil in the longest format of the game.
INDIAN LINE-UP FOR WARM-UP GAME
KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Ravindra Jadeja, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Devdutt Padikkal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Ravichandran Ashwin, Sarfaraz Khan.
